Zombieland, which will almost certainly fill the last slot of my alphabetically organized DVD shelf, delivers laughs with more pinpoint accuracy than nearly any comedy this year. It’s not particularly deep, and it’s not particularly outlandish, but it is satisfying as can be, with a funny premise, terrific banter, convincing gore, and a swinging attitude that keeps things breezy even as the outlook for the main characters appears grim. It also boasts the funniest cameo appearance of the year by a country mile.

Unlike most zombie film protagonists, Columbus (Jesse Eisenberg) is a massive neurotic who has managed to survive the post-apocalyptic zombie-infested America by strictly following his list of rules. Rule #1: Cardio– if you’re going to be able to outrun zombies, you have to be in shape. Ruke #2: Double Tap– don’t just shoot a zombie once and believe it’s dead… your saved ammo won’t help when that sucker pops back up and gnaws at your leg. Rule #4: Beware of Bathrooms– see, zombies are smart in this future, and they know that humans will have to vulnerably stand at a urinal or sit in a stall at some point, so they wait for food there. As our narrator, Columbus continually shares bon mots from his survival list as the film progresses.

Eventually, he meets Tallahassee (Woody Harrelson), a badass in an SUV with the number 3 painted on the side who has a craving for Twinkies. They also meet Wichita (Emma Stone) and Little Rock (Abigail Breslin)– they all agree to not use real names, instead choosing their destinations as their nicknames so that no true attachments are formed (Columbus’ Rule #5). Wichita and Little Rock are headed to Pacific Playland, a theme park where they had some great moments together when they were younger, and they hold out hope that it’s zombie-free, a place where innocence survives. I’m sure I won’t surprise you when I say the trip is more difficult than they imagine, and the park itself is the location of a giant showdown with an army of zombies.

This film was originally conceived by its director, Ruben Fleischer, as the pilot episode for a TV series. If there is a God in heaven, and he considers (as I do) zombie films one of his greatest creations, he will let HBO pick this up for at bare minimum a six-episode miniseries. The visuals are gorgeous, as Fleischer has turned highways and cities into believable wastelands. The action is fast-paced and witty– Harrelson making noise to alert the zombies of his presence, effectively beckoning them into battle, is a particularly welcome touch to the genre. The film might lack some of the dramatic oomph that several other zomcoms have, but its breezy delivery is part of its charm. Eisenberg doesn’t push the neuroses– he’s also an athletic enough hero that despite his Michael Cera-esque mannerisms, I buy him as someone who can outrun zombies and beat some down if push came to shove. Woody Harrelson is simply priceless in roles like these; when he can let his ham flag fly, he’s one of their best there is that does it (between this and 2012, Thanksgiving came early for Woody fans). Finally, Emma Stone shows that she has effectively captured all roles for the foreseeable future for the smart teenager with girl-next-door good looks. She has this way about her that makes her seem like she’s hiding something, so when she starts emoting, it always seems like a special private moment… that’s not really something an acting coach can teach you, you either have it or you don’t. She has it. And as for the cameo… skip the final paragraph if you don’t want it spoiled.

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Bill Murray absolutely delivers the funniest scene so far this year, rivaling the end credits in The Hangover for hardest sustained laughter over the course of several minutes. The gang finds a Hollywood map, and decides to sleep in style, finding Bill Murray’s mansion. His walls are covered with portraits of himself, from Renaissance-style to Andy Warhol homages. Of course, Murray appears as a zombie… but when Wichita whacks him with a golf club, he screams. He reveals that he had a makeup artist turn him into a zombie, and he’s been living his regular life, unbothered by other zombies, since they don’t eat their own kind. “I just shot 18 at Riverdale,” he utters, in that style that is so distinctive that it borders on national treasure. Funny without trying too hard, gory without being excessively so, Zombieland strikes the happiest of mediums, never delving into drama or politics or satire, instead content being exactly what it is. I was equally content.

New Moon, the meandering new entry in the Twilight series directed by Chris Weitz, continues the same theme of melodramatic teen passion/symbolism for abstinence. This time, however, we get more than two hours of it, and the basic “plot” of lonely Bella meets a hot guy who it turns out is secretly a monster while other dangerous vampires put her in danger just seems like a re-hash this time around. The budget is bigger and the effects far more lavish, but the dialogue is also more laughable and the logic behind events harder to understand. While trying to place emphasis on a Twilight sequel is ignoring the fact that the overwhelming majority of the audience is only going to fantasize about rubbing Taylor Lautner’s abs, I couldn’t help but notice the lion’s share of folks sitting with me laughing at every attempt at earnest passionate dialogue. Could this be the first hit film that people know going in is going to be bad?

We pick up where we left off… in Forks, Washington, with Bella (Kristen Stewart) and Edward (Robert Pattinson) deeply in love and talking about it often. Bella wants Edward to bite her and make her a vampire, so she can be close to him forever. However, Edward thinks to do that would be to take away her precious soul. (Soul is the symbolic word for virginity in these films.) When an accident causes one of the Cullen clan to attack Bella, Edward decides in order to protect her, he must leave her forever. Enter Jacob (Taylor Lautner), who is the prototype of the “best male friend,” except that he’s a total hunk– and he’s a werewolf. It takes Bella way longer to figure this out than it takes us in the audience. She’s let in on the secret surprisingly easily, and then the natural conflict is clear. Will Edward come back for Bella? Will Bella ever give Jacob a chance? Who will win in the epic werewolf-vampire fight? And will Jacob ever wear a shirt again?

Please don’t leave me hateful comments for my snide remarks regarding the quality of this sequel– as I stated in my Twilight essay, I thought that the first film was decent enough, and that it gets a rawl deal in terms of the thrashing it receives at the hands of those who hate the series, or Pattinson, or Stewart, or all of the above. This film does have some noteworthy improvements over the first. The effects are vastly superior… not even in the same ballpark, really. When Jacob jumps into the air and phases into a werewolf in mid-jump, it immediately destroys even the best effects in the last film. The film is also shot with more confidence; while it loses the right-in-the-thick-of-it indie feel that Catherine Hardwicke gave the first film, Chris Weitz shoots this film like an epic action romance, the way it wants to be shot. The score is dramatic, the music indie and emo, and the color palette far more fleshed out.

Also, this film gives opportunities for a few actors to shine. Taylor Lautner is a charming young actor who gives a usually gloomy series some much-needed warmth. He is also in possession of ten to twelve abdominal muscles that would merit a Best Supporting Actor nomination if anyone from this film would. Michael Welch provides humor as Mike, the goofball average joe friend at school who crushes on Bella and clearly stands zero chance (forget Team Edward and Team Jacob– I’m firmly on Team Mike). Billy Burke gets several warm moments as Charlie, Bella’s father, who doesn’t understand Bella but at least tries hard. Ashley Greene is peppy as Edward’s psychic sister Alice, and she provides necessary eye candy for any guy dragged by his girlfriend to see these films. Dakota Fanning appears in a “what is she doing here?” cameo as a powerful vampire who has the ability to torture people… or something– her intensity seems far less forced than many of the other vampiric actors. Finally, there’s Michael Sheen, who chews scenery (and necks) with great gusto as Aro, the leader of the Volturi, a group of ancient vampires in Italy who… well, who they are isn’t really important, just know that they put Edward and Bella in danger. His hammy performance showed me what kind of film this might have been with more capable actors, one where the intensity is fun to watch and the actors seem to be enjoying themselves and the great powerful passion they throw themselves headfirst into.

Unfortunately, many of the problems from the first film linger into the second. Pattinson’s intensity as Edward seems put on and bordering on self-indulgent. He takes his part so seriously that it forces teen girls to stifle giggles at the wooden dialogue he is forced to deliver. Stewart shows a little more life this time around, but she is now stuck with a great dilemma– the audience will clearly find Jacob the more reasonable choice of mate, yet she doesn’t give him the time of the day. In fact, she refuses to even give him one shot. Why? I know, I know, Team Edward followers will tell me how deep their love is, and that’s the reason why she can never be with anyone else. The problem is that the clunky script doesn’t give them any real connection of love, other than moany angsty one-liners. Jacob makes her smile, makes her laugh, and gets her out of the house. Edward never does those things and threatens to take her eternal soul. If Edward was portrayed by a more charming, less moody actor, perhaps this duel would seem more even-handed. Also, the plot mopes along like a raincloud. Aside from Bella experiencing adrenalin rushes to see Edward (in a misty cloud effect that also provokes chuckles nearly every time), there’s very little true action to speak of for a very long stretch of film. When the format is essentially the same as the first, repetition of the first film’s structure is not a good thing at all.

Of course, the set up for the sequel is a doozy. *SLIGHT SPOILER AHEAD* Edward says he’ll only bite her if she agrees to marry him. (Still think the pro-abstinence, bloodlust-as-real-lust metaphor is hokum?) And Edward and Jacob have the beginnings of what I pray will be an epic showdown. Yet cruel tease that the film is (and the one before it), it saves the most fascinating moments for the last five minutes. Naturally, with this movie making serious bank, it comes as no surprise that this film should be seen if only to keep your fingers on the pulse of popular culture. However, and forgive me since I haven’t read the books, if the plot doesn’t pick up for the third film, it will be increasingly difficult for me to motivate myself to donate another two plus hours of my life solely for the purpose of keeping up with the times. On the plus side, it won’t take very much for it to eclipse this entry.

As a man in my 20s, there are plenty of folks in my age range who approach me regarding Twilight and ask, “…who in the world likes this crap?” It’s a definitively generational craze, and it’s astonishing to think that some experts believe New Moon could sell as many tickets as Iron Man, when 85% of the population above the age of 25 just simply doesn’t get it. However, after watching it last night, it now clicks. Please note that I have not read the books nor do I know what happens later in the series; I am judging solely the first movie on its own merit. I surmise that the Twilight series is an extended metaphor where a vampire’s lust for human blood, which is always affiliated symbolically with sex throughout the history of fiction, represents a teenager’s rush of hormones and physical desires, yet the outcome of giving in to this lust is an eternal life of damnation and become a violent machine prone to frenzy at a moment’s notice. It’s a film in which sex, metaphorically speaking, is the villain.

Let’s examine the basic plot of the love story, shall we? We follow an angsty teen girl (Kristen Stewart, reigning queen of angst) who moves to a new town and has no friends. Certainly feelings of isolation resonate with any teenager, so the new town setting merely adds to the weight of this feeling. She has a very intense lab partner named Edward (Robert Pattinson, whose stare is so intense it borders on self-parody) who is alluring to her. She begins to have feelings for him, and she believes she is starting to dream about him. In one moment, he literally saves her life, which merely intensifies her feelings that he is special and her life is more rich with him in it. There’s one problem– he’s flighty, continually backing off if she gets too close to him or if her fragrance blows in his general direction. He admits that he has a great desire to touch her, but he knows that by doing so, it will send him into an uncontrollable frenzy, which would result in either her death or a drastic life change for the worse. They talk about their passionate love for the ages, they remain in close proximity, and he even tries kissing her a couple of times… but for the most part, while physical desire exists between the two of them, they know that restraining themselves is for the best.

Before I continue, let me say that I didn’t hate the movie, not by a longshot. While the characters are rather one-note and the special effects are of the quality of a made-for-SciFi Channel film, Catherine Hardwicke establishes a familiar high school setting, and keeps all of the non-vampiric elements of the film quite naturalistic. I was at times more entertained by the regular teens Mike (Michael Welch) and Jessica (Anna Kendricks) than I was the Cullens. There’s a scene in which Mike very sweetly asks Bella to prom, and I was so put off by the awkwardness of Edward up to that point, I wondered why there was only a Team Edward and Team Jacob, no Team Mike. Taylor Lautner is a very easygoing Jacob, and he shares a natural chemistry with Stewart. When it comes to Stewart and Pattinson, their performances fluctuate to put it nicely: at the beginning, Stewart’s performance fits the bill, but as Bella begins to express more passion, her monotone delivery doesn’t properly convey the idea. Pattinson, on the other hand, is laughable when he first steps on the screen, but as the film progresses, I became more used to his stylistic portrayal, and certainly he expresses that deep longing more convincingly than Stewart does.

The deep longing is the core of the film– the fight against the lust they have in order to maintain the purity of the love they feel. Examine the scene in which Edward is in Bella’s room, and he tries to kiss her. They share a couple of slow kisses, then start getting more passionate, and he lies on top of her in the bed. It’s a highly sex-charged moment, the culmination of all of their feelings and desires leading to this snowball effect in the bedroom. However, unlike in most films, where the consummation of their love would be cheered, here Edward jumps off of Bella quickly. He acknowledges that it was difficult for him to do that. She agrees, making the parallel between the lust for blood and the lust for sex crystal clear. How many bedroom scenes between teenagers who both have expressed a desire for the other result in a montage of them talking? I imagine this is a large reason why parents don’t object to purchasing the series or its paraphernalia for their children, yet children don’t find it outright square– it refuses to hide the fact that teenagers do lust for one another, while still expressing that the “safe” decision is restraint.

The author, Stephenie Meyer, doesn’t seem to be saying that there is any problem with feeling lust– it’d be a lie to attempt to say teenagers don’t. The dialogue in the film is chock full of statements of intense longing. “I hate you for making me want you so much,” Edward tells Bella at one point in the film. He’s a hero who not only has intense lust, but deep pangs of guilt, since he knows his urges conflict with his morals. He also could have had any girl, as Jessica says at the beginning, but he’s been keeping away, waiting for the right girl. He tells her, “You don’t know how long I’ve waited for you.” The reality is that most teens do put a value on lust, and aren’t interested in passing their special experience off to the first interested party. Usually the boys are seen as the sole instigators of lust in movies such as this (and sure enough, there is a stereotypical gang of drunk, rape-happy townies at one point), but the smart thing that Meyer does is acknowledge the desires of a teenage girl– typically a taboo in Hollywood. She provides temptation without being a floozy, since she feels she’s been waiting for a guy like him as well. “I don’t have the strength to stay away from you anymore,” he tells her. “Then don’t,” she replies, in a line that normally would lead to a bedroom montage of embraces and undressing. In fact, in most films, a movie where a guy and girl know that they love each other would approve of consummation to some degree, cheering for it. Here, even teens happily in love find that it’s better to wait.

They go through the film, continuing to moon over one another and fall deeper in love, even full well knowing physical intimacy will never come into the equation. “And so the lion fell in love with the lamb,” Edward says heavyhandedly. “What a stupid lamb,” Bella responds. “What a sick, masochistic lion,” Edward counters. Some would argue against the effectiveness of a pro-chastity message in a film where the characters understand that not giving in is a sick, dangerous, and at times unsatisfying game. The teenage girls which make up the fanbase of the series certainly share Bella’s lustful feelings for Robert Pattinson, and would undoubtedly cheer if they consummated their love. The fact of the matter remains that teenage girls do have newfound physical desires, and there would be no way to effectively promote waiting to satisfy them while denying that girls have these feelings without repelling the core audience. To deny that young people feel this way at all is simply ignorant, and any type of promoted agenda in politics or art that try to use this point come across as out of touch. Strangely enough, it’s because teenagers find truth in these ridiculous melodramatic characters and the feelings and urges they’re having that makes them such big fans… and consequently, Meyer’s subtle agenda acknowledging that it’s okay to have desire as long as you don’t give in slips into the subconscious of impressionable readers and viewers everywhere.

Once again, this is based solely on one movie– I have no idea which direction the series is headed. One of my favorite moments in the film is when Edward and Jacob exchange words for the first time, hinting at the massive conflict that is bound to occur. Hardwicke sets this up effectively as being an epic rivalry for the ages, so when they inevitably butt heads, there’s going to be a real weight to the battle. However, the real battle is still the desire between Edward and Bella, and how that desire will affect their relationship. Bella still wants Edward to give in, so that she can live forever damned but at least be able to satisfy her desire. Edward refuses to do so, proper gentleman that he is. The final words of the film aren’t about Edward vs. Jacob, they’re about this conflict, as Bella narrates, “No one will surrender tonight, but I won’t give in. I know what I want.” The series could have Bella succumb in the very next chapter for all I know, but it doesn’t change that Meyer began her series by rooting her characters in firm moral dilemma. The villains give into every urge, and the hero and his family shows restraint. The effectiveness of the propaganda is certainly up for debate, but I would postulate that it’s more effective to not patronize teenagers and acknowledge that their pubescent raging hormones will feel strong desires, strong emotions… strong everything, because when you’re a teenager, life is a melodrama. No teen will turn down a request for intimate action by stating, “No thanks, Edward waited, so can we.” But if you look, the pro-chastity message is plain as day. Meyer (herself a devout Mormon) has tapped into something that teenagers relate to and appreciate, and the moral conflict of finding love while fighting lust is the heart of the matter. I mean, Doctor Cullen only uses his vampirism on another human when necessary, and when he does, he emerges with another “child.” Is this really a coincidence?

* credit goes to the good people of Pass The Popcorn for contributing to many talking points in this article *

You’ve never seen destruction like this. Roland Emmerich apparently decided in reading about the Mayan calendar doomsday conspiracies that his previous armageddon films, Independence Day and The Day After Tomorrow, were far too subtle. This is the type of film where the scope of the effects work and the imagination behind the mayhem glue you to your seat. The beauty behind 2012 is that it takes disaster movie elements and cranks them up to the nth degree. Seen tsunamis bury skyscrapers? Here they bury mountain ranges. Seen volcanoes rain lava and ash on our heroes? Here a super-volcano sends off an atom bomb of lava and makes ash rain thousands of miles away. Seen buildings destroyed? Here you have entire continents destroyed. Emmerich gives us perhaps the most impressive effects sequence of the year… and then tops it… and then tops it again. This is the daddy of all disaster films, and easily the pinnacle of Emmerich’s career to date.

In 2009, massive solar flares alert a select number of scientists, including Adrian Helmsley (Chiwetel Ejiofor), that the Earth’s core is rapidly heating up as a result. Dr. Helmsley reports this to Chief of Staff Carl Anheuser (Oliver Platt), who sets in motion a plan to save humanity– we see the Mona Lisa replaced by a forgery, so the original can be carefully stored, and we see plans for a secretive dam being built in China that we suspect is not a dam at all. Flash forward to 2012, where one-time author/current limo driver Jackson Curtis (John Cusack) is late picking up his kids (Morgan Lily and Liam James) for a camping trip to Yellowstone. His ex-wife Kate (Amanda Peet) and her new boyfriend Gordon (Tom McCarthy) eye him with scorn before they depart. While in Yellowstone, Curtis sees dried-up lakes and new government testing facilities. He also meets a conspiracy-filled radio host, Charlie Frost (Woody Harrelson), who tell Curtis the end of the world is coming due to the Earth’s crust being displaced, which will set off massive earthquakes, tsunamis, and super-volcanoes. He also claims to have a map to the place where the government is building ships to save those rich enough to buy a ticket for survival.

Now don’t get me wrong– this is not a “good” movie. The characters are all very familiar, the speeches we’ve heard a hundred times, and the Russians are the fat bulbous detestable cliches that we’ve seen since the Cold War. I don’t mean for this review to convert those who know that they hate disaster movies. I’m not saying this is the disaster movies that will sway you on the ability of disaster movies to entertain. However, if you find enjoyment in the specific entertainment value that disaster movies provide (which I do), then get ready for two and a half hours of bliss. The special effects are among the best of the year– unlike Michael Bay, Emmerich gets off on the long shot, where instead of editing an action sequence to pieces, he lets the shot be packed with special effects without cutting, totally absorbing you into the suspense. The limo racing away from the splitting crust as the freeway crumbles, raining cars into the family’s path, is as intense and joyous a silly action sequence as I’ve seen since Live Free or Die Hard– in fact, it’s better than that. This is the moment where you either buy the movie in its entirety or check out early.

Emmerich also picked some terrific character actors to lead the way. Cusack brings his particular brand of barely likable schmo charm to Jackson– he’s believable as both a jaded writer and impatient limo driver. Chiwetel Ojiefor is one of the best young actors in Hollywood, and while he doesn’t have anything in terms of character (he’s the noble government worker who believes in humanity over the power of the almighty dollar), he delivers his speeches passionately and earnestly. Oliver Platt is a national treasure when it comes to playing smarmy villains; he fully embraces everything ugly about his chief of staff, yet manages to give him shades of dimension in between the dialogue. Danny Glover mostly sits and looks grim, but his mere presence provides some dignity to the proceedings. Amanda Peet is fairly worthless as Cusack’s ex-wife– far better is Tom McCarthy, as the nice guy boyfriend who Jackson’s kids like but who we know from past film experiences will be very very lucky if he survives. He manages to toe the line between the obnoxious new love interest stereotype and the harmless better-option new love interest stereotype… unlike in other films, where you can’t wait for that character to die, I rooted for his survival. Finally, there’s Woody Harrelson as the conspiratorial radio host, who joyously chews the scenery. Every disaster movie needs a shameless ham, and Harrelson not only embraces the ham, he bathes in it.

Why was this movie not released in IMAX? It’s easily the “biggest” movie in recent memory. Shockingly, it’s all based on a real theory– when Harrelson spouts off about Hapgood’s crust displacement theory, and that Einstein believed it was true, he’s not lying. Now, the movie loses steam in the last half-hour… the chaos has mostly ended, and the action moves inside the ships, and the sheer epic nature of the film hits a roadbump. However, when they look outside, and see an ocean covering the Himalayas, where only Mount Everest and K2 are large enough to peek out as islands, we get the full vision of how BIG a scale Emmerich wanted to operate on. This isn’t a film where you feel the effort to entertain– this is a labor of love for Emmerich, filling every corner of the film with every disaster movie cliche that he truly and earnestly loves. I love them too, and even with its flaws, I loved this movie. And yes, just as in every other Emmerich film, the cute little dog survives.

Law Abiding Citizen, the new film by F. Gary Gray, is a far-fetched fantasy disguised as a gritty serial killer thriller. There are also hints of social commentary that get interesting for half a second before diving into the realm of the ludicrous. Gray mixes and matches genres and ideas so liberally that the whole thing turns out to be a somewhat garbled mess. The idea of a man who got screwed over by the justice system deciding to try to take it down, and the man who cut a deal with a known rapist/murderer and then having to pay for his actions, are the material of a ripe Greek tragedy. Instead, Hollywood gets in the way, and the tones clash due to several key missteps.

Clyde Shelton (Gerard Butler) is an engineer whose house is invaded, and his wife and daughter are raped and murdered right before his eyes. Gray knows that the audience has zero chance of thinking of Clyde as anything but a brutal serial killer after the first half hour of the film, but wants us to sympathize with his plight until then, so he makes the unfortunate decision of showing us the viciousness of the home invasion. We see the knife enter the wife, we see her pants pulled down, we see the daughter walk in on the killer having mounted her mom, and we see the killer walk towards the girl, saying, “Little girls like me,” fully eliminating any trace of character dimension and replacing him with a murderous cartoon. Not surprisingly, later in the film, Clyde systematically tortures and kills the killers. It’s bloody and awful, but we still have traces of sympathy.

Then, the film starts to go from unpleasant to just plain bad. Nick Rice (Jamie Foxx) is the assistant district attorney who is more concerned with keeping a high conviction rate than serving justice, so he cuts a deal with the rapist, getting death penalty for the other home invader while the rapist goes free in eight to ten years. When Clyde starts exacting his revenge, however, it’s not just on the killers– it’s on anyone in the justice system involved with the events. He feels the system is broken, and he’s going to bring it all down. What follows are five ways in which the film messes up.

1. It doesn’t matter how badly the main character suffered– in a thoughtful film, brutal torture and slaughter of essentially innocent men and women will not be condonable. Ever. In The Transporter or some other Jason Statham film, this would be acceptable and in good fun, and starring Jason Statham, Law Abiding Citizen might have been a more successful (albeit different) movie. However, Gray tried to get us to sympathize with Clyde, and the way Gerard Butler is playing the part, it’s more like Hannibal Lecter than mournful parent/husband. It’s revealed that he used to be the brains for a spy organization, but that’s still not justification for what he does. The slimy people involved, who are self-centered and obnoxious? Of course, they need to die. But sweet, sympathetic supporting characters? And sending a video of vicious dismemberment to Rice’s 9-year-old daughter?

2. Be thoughtful or don’t– but if you don’t pick a side, it doesn’t work. There are moments of discussion about the flaws in the justice system, and how it can be easily manipulated so that murderers go free. The most interesting moment in the film is when Clyde acts as his own attorney and reveals that despite the very evident fact that he committed the murders, there’s no evidence that will stand up in a court of law. The judge agrees, and agrees to give him bail. Moments like this reveal the direction in which the film could have gone. Instead, it prefers to have outrageous twists and death scenes. One of the deaths is ludicrous, inventive, and shocking, and would fit perfectly into some B-film (my audience laughed out loud in delight). However, following the discussions of the justice system, it shifts the film from being thoughtful to thoughtless. It’s like a tug-of-war between those desirous of an intelligent film, and those desirous of turning their brain off before stepping into the theater. You can balance both, but this film doesn’t attempt to balance– it merely mashes one into the other.

3. If you set up a seemingly impossible scenario, and you don’t have an intelligent ending, your audience will rebel. I can forgive the tonal shifts. There is some good cinematography and a few cool deaths (though you can tell intelligence goes out the window in dealing with this film when the best compliment I can give it is some “cool deaths”). However, the ending has me scratching my head still, twelve hours later. Not only is the twist regarding how Clyde manages to kill all these people from the confines of his jail cell an enormously stupid cop out, the character who receives his just desserts (I won’t say if it’s Nick or Clyde) receives them in a way that is implausible at best and laughable at worst. I would be happy to hear an explanation in the comments section below, with spoilers and all. I simply don’t know how the ending was pulled off.

4. If your supporting actors are more interesting than your main ones, you have a serious problem. Bruce McGill and Leslie Bibb both do nice work battling with their moral dilemma, whether they did the right thing and if they earned the death that’s coming for them. Jamie Foxx is the stubborn one, who only contemplates his responsibility for what happened maybe once, before continuing to do the necessary police work to save the day (even though he’s a lawyer, not a cop… the line is blurry in Gray’s world between lawyers and cops). Finally, Gray should have seen the work Viola Davis was doing as the mayor of Philadelphia, noted how she was exerting more force and power on the screen than any other character by a long shot, and written more scenes for her. She outclasses Butler and Foxx by a country mile in this film.

5. Don’t let Hollywood dictate the path of your film. Somewhere, I have the feeling there was an interesting movie– in fact, I read that Jamie Foxx was originally set to play Clyde with Gerard Butler as Nick. This intrigues me… Foxx would have likely been a more pensive, less psychotic killer, and Butler would have been more emotional as the assistant D.A. (at least, I’m basing this on their strengths as performers). This might have lent itself to a more intriguing thriller, laced with moral dilemmas and not merely packed with killing for the sake of blood. But that’s not what’s “in” in Hollywood right now, is it? Why have thoughtful thrillers when people’s phones can blow their brains out and twist endings can ruin any semblance of logic? In the end, while Gray and company might have abided by the laws of the brainless Hollywood thriller, he is guilty of a first-degree waste of talent.

Max, the hero of Where The Wild Things Are, is having fun early in the film in a snowball fight. It’s a freewheeling, wonderful action scene, where his sister’s friends attempt to pelt him back as hard as they can, and Max giggles with glee– this is what winter fun is about as a child. Then, one of his sister’s friends caves in his snowbase where he was hiding, and on a dime, Max is terrified, cold, and betrayed. What Spike Jonze gets about childhood throughout the film, and what makes Where The Wild Things Are such a beautiful, melancholy experience, is that while we remember it as this magical carefree time, the opposite is true– children care more strongly than we jaded adults do. We trust completely, we love completely, we give ourselves over to our feelings and our experiences with total abandon, and thus our strong emotions switch quickly.  My emotions weren’t switching while watching the film– I was enraptured the entire time.

The story, adapted from a book which contains only ten sentences, centers in on Max (Max Records), a kid who feels his sister and mom don’t pay him enough attention, and after a bratty confrontation with his mom where he bites her, he runs away, hops on a boat, and sails to the land of the Wild Things. He meets Carol (voiced by James Gandolfini), the leader of the pack, an impulsive frustrated monster. Along with him are his friends, Ira (Forest Whitaker), Judith (Catherine O’Hara), Alexander (Paul Dano), Douglas (Chris Cooper), and the silent Bull. Finally, there’s K.W. (Lauren Ambrose), a loner who takes long ventures out to meet other creatures, which angers Carol, who is focused on trying to keep the whole group together as best friends forever.

Roger Ebert said in his review of The Polar Express, “”The Polar Express” has the quality of a lot of lasting children’s entertainment: It’s a little creepy. Not creepy in an unpleasant way, but in that sneaky, teasing way that lets you know eerie things could happen. There’s a deeper, shivery tone…a world of its own, like “The Wizard of Oz” or “Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory,” in which the wise child does not feel too complacent.” Spike Jonze achieves the exact same effect here. When Max first arrives, the monsters threaten to eat him. We as trained audience members feel this is an empty threat– after all, little boys don’t die in movies like this. A few minutes later, we see a pile of bones, unmistakably made up of their previous leaders who displeased them. Complacency is immediately tossed out the window. These monsters aren’t just nice friends, they’re real threats who could turn on Max if things go awry. The label of “wild thing” isn’t handled with kiddie gloves.

Yet the film never loses its realistic depiction of childishness. Max, like real children, can be a brat if he feels neglected or scorned. He bites his mother and stomps around– it’d be easy to judge this character at this point in the film if we totally lost the ability to look back at our own younger days, to the stories our parents told us about things we did as children that we would be horrified to see nowadays. When he encounters the monsters, all he wants to do with them are the same things he would do at home– run around, jump, dig holes, build makeshift “homes” outdoors. He wants everyone to sleep together in a real pile, because let’s be honest, if you saw a bunch of big fuzzy monsters like that, you’d darn sure want to hug them. The monsters exhibit this childishness as well. Carol is temperamental, Judith is pouty and doubtful, Ira is a pushover, Alexander seeks attention, and Douglas is trustworthy and reliable. When Carol introduces Max to Douglas and says, “I count on him for everything,” there was a simple beauty and childish honesty to the delivery that made my eyes well up.

Perhaps I’m the wrong person to review this, since I found the book so perfect as a kid, so there’s a sense of sentimentality that I immediately place on the material. However, I think this is the rare movie that should fully please fans of the book. Usually, fans of a book whine about things left out of the film adaptation, and I write a review insisting that we must remove our devotion to the core material’s particulars in order to see if the movie captured the essence of the book the best way that it could– simply put, is it a good movie, book be damned? Here is the exact opposite scenario: a book has had tons of material added to its ten-sentence story, and I think that every single bit added captures the essence flawlessly. The script, by Jonze and Dave Eggers, can also be interpreted to give the monsters various symbolic meanings and interpretations, though for me such additional scholarly endeavors are unnecessary; the characters stand on their own without any added symbolism.

Jonze’s effects work (a combination of real puppet bodies and some CGI face work) is a revelation in a time when CGI is thrown haphazardly around– here is a director who wanted the child actor to be able to touch, hug, and interact with real wild things, and the decision absolutely paid off. Max Records is a natural, lacking the put-on precociousness most child actors have. The production design and cinematography are easily among the best of the year. This is simply one of those films where every element is combined with such unity of vision that it does more than create a new world… it creates a new reality. There’s not a moment of the film that fails to ring true. And if when Max sets out to leave the Land of the Wild Things, you don’t tear up at his goodbyes with his magical wild friends, you need to thaw out your ice-cold heart. Instead of manipulating your emotions, this fantasy earns them. This is one of the best movies of the year.

Steven Soderbergh has pulled off a delicate balancing act with The Informant!, his newest film– he manages to satirize corporate crime without any preachiness. It’s a 1970s style character study meeting with broad farce. Soderbergh keeps the mostly true plot kicking along with irreverent narration by our untrustworthy protagonist and a bouncy Marvin Hamlisch score, and the end result is one of the funnier movies of the year. Matt Damon does his best work to date, in a performance reminiscent of Jack Lemmon, and Soderbergh shows that once again, his best work comes from working within the studio system… this is his best movie since Traffic.

Damon plays Mark Whitacre, an executive at Archer Daniels Midland, a food-processing conglomerate. After getting involved with the FBI on an attempt to stop an outsider from blackmailing the company, Whitacre is pushed by his wife (Melanie Lynskey) into telling FBI agent Brian Shepard (Scott Bakula) the truth about ADM– they’ve been fixing prices in the international lysine market. Agent Shepard and his partner, Agent Herndon (Joel McHale) jump at this opportunity to take down the crooks in a major corporate crime, and immediately put their trust in Whitacre, who sticks his neck out at great risk to himself, his family, and his way of life. There’s one big problem, however– Whitacre is a compulsive liar, and despite his good work in the field wearing a wire, time and time again his deceptions and delusions of grandeur make the agent ask… what in the world is wrong with this guy?

The take on this story is really where the film went right– Soderbergh decided instead of taking this in the direction of the usual corporate crime thriller (The Insider, etc.) to make it into a farce. Inspired move, Mr. Soderbergh, as I’ve never seen a film quite like this one before. It manages to make fun of the decisions Whitacre makes without ever being fully unsympathetic. Damon’s performance treats Whitacre as a quirky Ohioan everyman, whose mind wanders and who has big dreams. I have no doubts that the real Mark Whitacre felt the same way about himself before everything started to fall apart– the movie rings true, which is a remarkable feat when the events seem outrageous and the Marvin Hamlisch score sets a broad comedy tone.

It’s taken me a while to figure out exactly how to convey why this movie works as well as it does. Soderbergh took the subject of corporate crime, which is not funny, and a protagonist who in the end is diagnosed with bipolar disorder, which also is not funny… and decided to try to make it funny. He cast many stand-up comedians (Paul F. Tompkins, Richard Daley, Patton Oswalt, Tom Papa) in small roles, added a farcical score, and turned the entire system into a big comedy of errors. There’s a commitment to the vision and a sure-handed execution by Soderbergh that make the whole affair compelling and warm. Finally, there’s Damon, who we find ourselves liking despite his lunacy. It’s the most fleshed-out, full-blooded performance of his career, and one would hope there’s an Oscar nomination in the works. He carries the film, gets big laughs, and at the end, even when his delusions of grandeur have destroyed his own life, we still are utterly drawn in. It’s as smart and ably executed a comedy as we’re liable to see all year long.

Sorry about the delay, guys. It’s been insane at work the last couple weeks, so the reviews are coming more slowly than I’d like. However, you have reviews of:

The Informant!

A Serious Man

Where the Wild Things Are

This Is It

…that will be arriving on Friday. In the meantime, you can become a fan of The Password Is Swordfish on Facebook! Thanks for reading, and on Friday, I’ll have a bunch of good reviews for you. And as a sneak preview for what my reviews will say? Let’s just say all of the four will be receiving at least three kernels.

You have very little time left to see this in theaters. I went opening night, and I’ve been floating ever since. Toy Story is one of the greatest films of the last 25 years, one of the singular achievements in cinematic history, and it’s revolutionized the way animated films are both drawn and told. It also began a run of films by Pixar that has proven to be the most impressive run of films by a production studio in the history of movie production– no other run of ten films has produced seven four-star classics and three more three-star films in a fifteen-year span. Ever. Toy Story 2 is included in the double feature, and while its animation is even more impressive than the first, and it performs admirably as a sequel to one of the best films I’ve ever seen, it doesn’t quite live up. Still, the two together, with retouched graphics and 3D effects added in, stands tall as one of the best times I’ve had in theaters this year.

I was ten when the original Toy Story came out. I was starting to get too old to believe your toys came to life when you left the room, but action figures and stuffed animals still had names, and still had their own personalities in my mind. Watching it now, nearly fifteen years later, I felt ten again. Before the film began, a trailer for Toy Story 3 showed Andy as an adult now, wondering what to do with his old toys. A montage of Andy growing older with his toys diminishing farther into the background of his life brought tears to my eyes. This was exactly what I had gone through– and sure enough, if I went back home, there all my old toys and stuffed animals would be, with my mom urging me coldly and logically to get rid of them, because I never play with them anymore, and I’m never home. Moms never understood in the Toy Story films. Mom was the one who never believed Andy when he said Woody and Buzz were missing. Mom was the smug one when Woody and Buzz showed up magically in Andy’s box. Mom was the one who went to Andy’s room to scoop up toys for the yard sale while Andy was away at summer camp.  It’s not that Mom doesn’t care– she just has forgotten that toys have lives of their own, lives that only the child owner can fully appreciate and comprehend.

When the film started, showing me Andy’s familiar wallpaper, listening to the familiar strains of Randy Newman’s classic score, I was taken back to age ten with a startling quickness. When Woody first appears, with the pullstring utterance, “Reach for the skyyyyy!”, warm tingles ran down my spine. This isn’t just a movie from my childhood– it IS my childhood. Toy Story enables the viewer to relive that sense of being a kid again. The fact that I was a kid when Toy Story came out only adds to my appreciation, layering a touch of nostalgia on top. The musical montages made me reach for a tissuebox that I wish I’d anticipated bringing. “I Will Go Sailing No More” is one of the best musical montages ever in any film, and then the film has the grace to follow that beautiful heart-wrenching moment with one of the funniest scenes in the film, Buzz flipping out, yelling, “You see the hat?? I am Mrs. Nesbitt!” Every voice is perfect, every moment magically snapped into place flawlessly, and now with the retouched visuals, the animation looks as sharp and awe-inspiring as ever.

There is a moment in Toy Story that ranks up there as one of the best moments of its kind ever made. It’s the moment in which Woody and Buzz have been left behind by the moving truck, and they realize they’ve got a rocket and a match– they can still catch up! Woody lights the match… and the wind from a passing car extinguishes the flame. This moment is one of those moments where despite the fact that you know, you just KNOW, that the heroes will make it back and the day will be saved, you think for a moment, “Does this film truly have the guts to end with these toys… not making it back?” It’s an impossibility, and as an avid moviegoer, you know that they will make it. Yet when the surefire final solution is gone, what’s left to do? A similar moment is the moment in Back To The Future when Marty is racing the clock, and he puts the key in the ignition, and the car won’t start. These are the moments in film that sink our hearts into our stomachs, and they are only achieved when we have massive amounts of caring for the characters on screen and when the storytelling is nothing short of masterful. This tells you the caliber of film Toy Story is. It’s one of a kind– it’s magical.

Toy Story 2 does not reach the same level, but that’s like faulting Wilt Chamberlain for not scoring a hundred points in a single game twice. It begins with an exquisitely animated Buzz Lightyear adventure, which is done creatively but feels somewhat out of place with the heartfelt simpler pleasures of the first film. When we return to Andy’s room, the laughs begin, and the rest of the film stays within the toy point-of-view. Woody is stolen by a toy collector at a yard sale, and he discovers his worth as a classic collector’s item. Part of him wants to return to Andy… but the other part of him acknowledges the grim reality that his time in Andy’s life is short at best, whereas in a museum kids will marvel at him forever. Meanwhile, Buzz and the gang set off into the city to try to find Woody, and they enter a toy store, full of Barbies, other Buzz Lightyears, and the Emperor Zurg action figure hellbent on destroying Buzz.

The hijinks in the city is very amusing, but lacks the same sort of heart in these sequences that the previous film maintained throughout. The moments between Woody and the other figures that make up Woody’s Roundup Gang (voiced by Joan Cusack and Kelsey Grammer) have all of the heart and the thoughtfulness that we’d expect from a Pixar film, although a musical montage by Sarah McLachlan detailing how Joan Cusack’s character, Jessie, lost the favor of her owner, feels derivative of the “Strange Things” montage from the first film. There’s nothing wrong with this movie– it’s laugh-out-loud funny, full of the characters we love, and even more exquisitely animated than the first (the conclusion of the film at the airport is really sensational). It’s unfair that our brains automatically compare a sequel to its truly classic predecessor, but it’s the truth of the matter: you can’t leave Toy Story 2 without thinking, “It’s not AS perfect as Toy Story.”

Still, you’d be a fool not to check out this double-feature while it’s still in theaters– you’ve got at least one more weekend. The films are split by an intermission with trivia and little fun clips containing the whole gang (peppered with wisecracks so funny they made me want to skip my restroom break and stay the whole time). If you’re not familiar with these films, you’re in for a treat that I can’t begin to describe. If you saw Toy Story fifteen years ago, it’s absolutely worth seeing the gorgeous retouching they’ve done with it… and it’s always more fun seeing classics in theaters. But if you’re like me, and you’re of the rare age that you grew up with Toy Story, then this will be one of the best movie experiences of recent memory.

Though the movie Toy Story 2 by itself would be three kernels, Toy Story and the experience as a whole is…

If human beings could live via proxy through robots controlled by an individual’s thoughts, without any danger to the user, the world truly could improve in a number of ways. War could be waged without a single loss of human life– when a soldier robot is destroyed, its controller can simply log into another. Policemen would be impervious to the attacks of criminals they pursue. Sports would be more strategic, and athletes could play their whole lives without injury to themselves. Murder, violence, and disease would dwindle down to record-low levels. But would living through a robot truly be living? Surrogates examines this world, and while Surrogates will likely go down in history as a massive box-office flop (due to a bizarre release date, an uninspired ad campaign that made it look like a Matrix ripoff, and a huge budget), those who see it will find it to be an entertaining and well-produced sci-fi film.

Bruce Willis stars as Agent Tom Greer, an FBI agent investigating the murder of two people through damage done to their surrogates. In the world of the film, the overwhelming majority of people live their lives through their surrogates, opting to let them go out into the world while they experience it from the safety and comfort of their home. If the news got out to the population that one could die while attached to their surrogates, it would potentially change society as a whole. That’s exactly what The Prophet wants, a dreadlocked revolutionary played by Ving Rhames, who serves as the leader in a reservation located in New York City free of technology. Agent Greer wouldn’t mind a change either– his wife, Maggie (Rosamund Pike), has refused to see him in real life after the loss of their child, and they live out their marriage via their surrogates.

After an exciting chase scene in which Greer chases down the man with the murder weapon, is nearly killed himself, accidentally crashes a helicopter into the human reservation, and is then destroyed by angry technophobes, it forces Willis to continue conducting his investigation without a surrogate, on his own in a world full of robots. He is perpetually nervous and easily startled by the sudden shift in sensation, and every bump, punch, or push he takes from someone is painful, since it comes from a strong metal being rather than your average joe. Luckily for the film, no one does the “one beat up man against the world” routine better than Bruce Willis. This is the type of film that fits his star quality like a glove. The supporting cast around him, including Rhames, Radha Mitchell, and James Cromwell, all do solid work, but the loveliest performance comes from Pike, who manages to convey emotion through the way she carries her surrogate’s pauses and physicality. When we see what she looks like in real life, it’s shocking to see what a toll a life of solitude and medicine has taken.

The writers, Michael Ferris and John Brancato, and director, Jonathan Mostow, last collaborated on Terminator 3: Rise of the Machines, a film about how technology will rebel against humanity. Here, they create a film about how humanity will take advantage of technology to destroy each other– a far more realistic starting point, in my humble opinion (then again, the Terminators aren’t exactly models of realism). Between Breakdown, U-571, Terminator 3, and this film, Mostow has shown he can capably stage a thrilling action sequence with the best of Hollywood directors. The movie never fully takes off, content to stay within the realm of safe Hollywood sci-fi films, but the execution is handled well, with strong effects work at every turn and some terrific moments. In Surrogates, a surrogate salesman explains that early models just show you the outside world without letting you feel anything, but the higher-end models gives you all the feelings and sensations you want. As a sci-fi film, Surrogates is a higher-end model: strong ideas that are used not as a jump-off point for manic action and big explosions, but rather to build thought, character, and even feelings.