Zombieland

I have to come to realize that my posts are really going to interrupt the flow and tone of our blog. It seems that Melissa’s posts about the newly married couple doing wholesome things like building a snowman and going bowling and whatever will be interrupted with very random discussions of movies I see. This will be especially true when the movie I watch happens to have a title like Zombieland. Sorry, Melissa.

So yes, I watched Zombieland. (Special thanks to Rebecca Tatum for inviting Melissa out of town for the weekend). I have also decided the “format” my entries will have, copied pretty shamelessly by the aforementioned critic Dave White.

What’s the Deal: It’s post-zombie-apocalypse, and there are only a handful of humans surviving. One of them is “Columbus.” He is called “Columbus,” because he is from Columbus, Ohio, and the characters make a special point not to get to know each other too well, like by learning each other’s names, because they all know that each could soon be the Zombies’ next victim. Columbus strictly adheres to his hyper-cautious list of Rules for surviving zombie encounters. He eventually meets up with Woody Harrelson’s “Tallahassee,” a zombie-killing expert, and two con artists, known as Little Rock and Wichita. The group makes its way to California fighting off various zombie encounters along the way.

Things I liked about the movie:
1. Tone. This movie is really funny. I swore I would never write incoherent things like “this movie never takes itself too seriously,” but that’s really the best way to describe Zombieland. It’s really short, quick-witted, and very well done.

2. The scene where Columbus first encounters a zombie. While alone in his dorm room, again, on a weekend night, his super-hot neighbor who has never spoken to him before knocks on his door and explains that she has been running from a strange homeless man who tried to bite her. They go and sit on the couch and take a nap, and when he wakes up he is attacked by his neighbor who has now morphed into a zombie. As he’s fighting her off he keeps apologizing. It’s good stuff.

3. Columbus’ survival list. Also very funny. As he’s narrating the list, the film shows the near-miss that caused him to add that rule to his list. It’s done very well.

4. The Cameo. This movie features one of the best, funniest, and most surprising cameos I’ve ever seen. I don’t want to give it away, but you’ll know what I’m talking about when it happens.

Things I didn’t like.
1. Really the only thing that bothered me was that the main character acted just like Michael Cera’s characters. Kind of timid, kept talking when he should stop, etc. Other than that, good, solid entertainment.

Side Note… I thought I would share one of the funnier lines from a review by Dave White. This made me laugh out loud (not necessarily a difficult task, but it was funny just the same). He was reviewing some terrible teen comedy (Miss March, perhaps?), and was describing where it was on the “funny” continuum compared to other recent bad teen comedies. He wrote, “it was funnier than College, but of course a prank phone call from someone telling me my mother had just died would be funnier than College.”