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Trailer here. (http://www.apple.com/trailers/sony_pictures/zombieland/)
Release date: October 9, 2009
Starring: Woody Harrelson, Jesse Eisenberg, Emma Stone, Abigail Breslin
Directed by: Ruben Fleischer
Premise: Columbus (Jesse Eisenberg) has made a habit of running from what scares him. Tallahassee (Woody Harrelson) doesn't have fears. If he did, he'd kick their ever-living ass. In a world overrun by zombies, these two are perfectly evolved survivors. But now, they're about to stare down the most terrifying prospect of all: each other.
some of this was shot in atlanta and valdosta, and one of my best friends was cast as one of the zombie extras in the amusement park. i will see it just for him and in support of his budding/non-existent career in acting.
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I think zombie movies are just about due for another 20 year sabbatical by now. In the last few years we've covered serious zombies, funny zombies, slow zombies, fast zombies, zombies as a metaphor for terrorism, zombies as a metaphor for racism, zombies as a metaphor for, uh... butlers, smart zombies, stupid zombies, evil zombies, sympathetic zombies....
Just stop for a while. That's enough.
Yeah, what that guy said.
Red Band Trailer here. (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HoZIy0_naPU)
I'll quote a reviewer and say, "This is the answer to 'Shawn of the dead'". A extremely fun zombie movie that has a surprising amount of heart and a hell of a lot of giggles. This experience was like having sex with a fiery red head: enjoyable and something you will never forget and will want to have again and again. It gives you hope for the future of zombie films and I'm usually on the fence when it comes to flicks about the un-dead. You don't have to rush out and pay over 10 bucks but its certainly a highly recommended rental.
I want to see this but... how is this an answer to Shaun of the Dead? I'm not sure that it needed to be answered.
yeah. seems like more of an echo if anything.
You are right, its more of an american echo of 'shawn of the dead'.
this has a very high critical rating on RT, so i am a little interested now.
i think they have spent a ton of advertising money on this because i have seen tv ads for what seems like months.
I saw this last night and had a lot of fun. I feel like the film loses a bit of momentum-- from the trailer I was hoping for a hundred minutes of comically violent zombie deaths. It does more or less deliver. That being said, the trailer has all of the highlights except for one or two.
It's a funny zombie movie but SotD was much better.
Spoilers
I loved the BM scene... I really liked the person-in-zombie-makeup point of it. If there ever is a zombie apocalypse, I'm headed to his house to try and play GB with him. Other than that, my favorite part were the slow-mo zombie deaths at the beginning. The rules got a little tired after a while. I would have liked to see other rules come up, have it stop at the beginning except for a punchline here or there, or just be contained to the beginning.
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It's pretty hard to ignore the comparisons to Shaun of the Dead, which is unfortunate because that film was so brilliant that it becomes more apparent this film doesn't have much to add. The opening credits are some of the most inventive and visually stunning I've ever seen (Watchmen titles + zombies + Metallica), but this is unfortunately the highlight of the film. The script has a some clever ideas, the "rules for survival", for example are cute, but surprisingly for a film called Zombieland the film manages to shortchange the zombies! The zombie deaths aren't very interesting, no characters are ever put in danger and long stretches of film have no zombies present at all. When the characters arrive at the mansion 2/3 of the way through, the film begins to sag and never recovers. The film is fun but slight, especially after wading through the zombie films of the past decade and comparing this to the brilliant Shaun of the Dead.
how many skulls?
Quote from: Reinhold on October 22, 2009, 06:00:47 PM
how many skulls?
I probably wouldn't rank it with skulls since those are reserved for the Best Horror films, but if I had to rank it against that scale I'd prob say 3 or 4?
Even though I agree with every single complaint modage has, I still really liked this. That stuff is kind of nagging at me, but this film is so much fun and light-hearted that it's hard to really hold it against it. The comedy and the pacing are spot-on, even if it does come up short as a zombie film. I feel like the characters have so much heart that they really carry the film. I laughed a lot, and I liked that no one's really in harm's way, we're just able to sit and laugh it all off.
This is another overhyped film. I don't think in recent years we had so many overhyped bad, semi decent or regular films in theaters. This sure is one of them. A great premise is turned into nothing as pretty much every lazy option is taken. As everyone has said, the movie is calles Zombieland yet there aren't any fucking zombies, nor any of the characters appear to be in danger for one second. The tone is inconsistent and forced in more than one occasion. The use of voice over only adds to the boredom because it really wasn't necessary.
My main problem with the film was the main character. I hated that fag. He was fucking unfunny and ruined every single fucking line. We need a young Woody Allen who can be a pussy and neurotic and at the same time being charming and have some personality. the understatement in this guy's performance crosses the line to being boring. Sometimes I watch all these movies and I really wonder about the US of A. Is everyone fucking scarred because they went to high school and acted like pussies and the hot girls were ALL idiots who dated "jocks" who bullied the rest of them? Is every skinny guy filled with resentment towards all that shit years later? Is any person who shows any interest in interesting things like music, literature and film segregated to the point of travis bickelism and turned into a fucking fag? I mean I was a weirdo in high school but shit, you would never hear me talking about myself like this idiot here, about how some hot girl was unreachable and how every woman never got close to me. It just gets on my nerves to see this shit movie after movie.
Anyway this film has like three funny scenes, one of them of course, the bill murray scene. Woody Harrelson could have given a classic performance if only the film had some aim or order to it. As it is, he has his moments, but they don't make too much sense.
damn.
Right on. Yeah i walked out of this shitland 15 min into it. I guess the blatant, "look at us we're in a movie" attitude of the film is not really inviting. The kid is annoying--that is just an irrefutable truth. It seemed like the whole thing depended on your potential sense of peculiar humor. Which is probably the type of humor i should be having and enjoying but i rather prefer seeing Nick Cage rape a bitch in front of some oblivious boyfriend while smoking crack. :ponder:
You walked out too soon, then. You should've taken a brief nap or texted all your friends like everyone else in the theater until the crowning moment:
SPOILER (but since you walked out, read this)
Bill Murray's cameo makes the movie. It doesn't make up for it all, but you know, if you bought a car that didn't work but had really impressive A/C you'd want to see what that was all about before returning it.
I didn't think it was terrible, but it wasn't as good as people were hyping it up to be. This the lesser of the two Jesse Eisenberg "land" movies.
The best zombie movie ever. Only because the film keeps the zombie storyline at a second level and makes the story between the characters more important. The effect? I enjoyed the movie. Nothing more. Shaun of the Dead's first half is a lot funnier and also makes the zombie's second tier, but its second half was a standard zombie thriller.
All other zombie movies I have seen try to make a zombie storyline important. They find weird niches to self aggrandize themselves on the dumb subject and elevate it beyond its minimal horror effect. Zombies could be scary if done better, but it's a cult story and I don't get it so that's why I have to promote dumb movies like Zombieland.
But if Woody Harrelson wasn't in this movie, it wouldn't have been worth watching.
Wrong.
Watch Night of the Living Dead. Rewatch Shaun of the Dead.
Accept your wrongness.
To someone who really cares about zombie movies, my opinion is definitely wrong. It doesn't matter to them and probably shouldn't anyways. My one point within the whole review will only have possible sway with independents on the issues, haha.
This is the exact type of shitty but fun movie GT seems to overrate.
I don't particularly like zombie movies but hey, this film doesn't even have zombies in it.
It makes sense GT since you liked the last Indiana Jones movie and that one wasn't an Indiana Jones movie either.
Again, you go nuts when I really don't praise a movie at all. Zombieland is enjoyable but dumb. Ignore the greatest zombie movie comment because it's meaningless considering I have no interest in zombie movies, but I'm not saying much really in the end. A kid getting kicked in the junk is also enjoyable but dumb.
Quote from: Alexandro on March 19, 2010, 02:27:37 PM
It makes sense GT since you liked the last Indiana Jones movie and that one wasn't an Indiana Jones movie either.
I rewatched the last Indiana Jones and I was wrong to give it any consideration. The early ones are better entertainment and that includes Temple of Doom. People make mistakes sometimes, haha. But I'm no authority on anything so my being wrong or reevaluating a movie is no different than someone else doing so. It happens.
You can't be surprised when people make their criticisms of your writing personal when you open posts with polemical lines like "The best zombie movie ever". You know that's going to rile people up - you KNOW it! And you can backtrack and say it was a joke, or complain about people's accusations that you just like to be contrary, or claim that
Quote from: Gold Trumpet on March 19, 2010, 02:30:27 PM
I'm no authority on anything
But as long as your approach is didactic and your tone authoritative, people are going to assume that you believe you ARE an authority; and you can expect to get these reactions. Fair enough - in this instance you also included a line admitting that you don't "get" zombie movies; in which case, why make such a grand pronouncement?! It's like someone with no real knowledge on the subject of Antonioni telling you that your least favourite film of his is, in fact, his greatest. To which you would probably say
Quote from: modage on March 19, 2010, 12:00:58 PM
Accept your wrongness.
Quote from: children with angels on March 19, 2010, 03:20:35 PM
You can't be surprised when people make their criticisms of your writing personal when you open posts with polemical lines like "The best zombie movie ever". You know that's going to rile people up - you KNOW it! And you can backtrack and say it was a joke, or complain about people's accusations that you just like to be contrary, or claim that
I didn't backtrack because in the original review, I pretty much lambasted the movie afterward and made my feelings of disinterest known for zombie movies. If people are only going to read the first three words only then that is their problem.
Quote from: children with angels on March 19, 2010, 03:20:35 PM
But as long as your approach is didactic and your tone authoritative, people are going to assume that you believe you ARE an authority; and you can expect to get these reactions.
If you didn't notice, most people here carry on with an authoritative tone for their own ends. For me, it's assumed more so because I have taken unpopular stances and stuck to them and that has struck some people the wrong way because I was going after their favorites. I actually believe I am more willing to question my own perspective and challenge myself than some others. I am trying to be reflective in my reviews so sometimes the pendulum swings back to me and I am directly challenging an old assumption of mine.
Quote from: Gold Trumpet on March 19, 2010, 03:41:19 PM
If you didn't notice, most people here carry on with an authoritative tone for their own ends. For me, it's assumed more so because I have taken unpopular stances and stuck to them and that has struck some people the wrong way because I was going after their favorites.
No, it isn't that - it really isn't: it's your tone. There's a big difference between a one or two line review stating "This was awesome. It was the best X ever" and your approach, which will open with a similar statement and then elaborate on it at length in a manner that implies a whole theoretical framework and value system which others don't share (because it's pretty idiosyncratic), but which you want to educate them about. There's nothing wrong with the long posts and elaboration, but when you combine it with with a particular kind of language, a desire to educate, and (especially) a fondness for inflammatory and knowingly contentious one-liners, it guarantees you will get impassioned (and personalized) opposition.
Quote from: children with angels on March 19, 2010, 04:06:02 PM
Quote from: Gold Trumpet on March 19, 2010, 03:41:19 PM
If you didn't notice, most people here carry on with an authoritative tone for their own ends. For me, it's assumed more so because I have taken unpopular stances and stuck to them and that has struck some people the wrong way because I was going after their favorites.
No, it isn't that - it really isn't: it's your tone. There's a big difference between a one or two line review stating "This was awesome. It was the best X ever" and your approach, which will open with a similar statement and then elaborate on it at length in a manner that implies a whole theoretical framework and value system which others don't share (because it's pretty idiosyncratic), but which you want to educate them about. There's nothing wrong with the long posts and elaboration, but when you combine it with with a particular kind of language, a desire to educate, and (especially) a fondness for inflammatory and knowingly contentious one-liners, it guarantees you will get impassioned (and personalized) opposition.
Still mostly disagree. First, you mislabel the rest of the board. Their tone isn't so simple and straight forward. Unlike a lot of people, I hardly ever name call or try to put someone else down for their position. I try to keep it respectful, but name calling and put downs do get very personal here and it can be an egregious conversation for someone on the short end of a debate about something when other people start to chime in and group mentality takes over a little. As far as I'm concerned, that's a negative tone and it happens all too often.
Second, do I have a different theoretical position that people may disagree with? Sure, but I'm trying to explain myself to make it understandable for myself and others because when I'm reviewing something, I fully don't know yet where I stand. Writing something out helps me think out my feelings, but this isn't just a set up for me to feel superior to anyone else. I would have better language that would put more people down if I was doing that.
Do I sometimes have a tone? Sure. I'm not disagreeing with that. Was calling Zombieland the best zombie movie ever a contentious line? Yes, of course. I don't mind that because everyone says lines like those and because the majority of my reviews are based in just trying to hone into an interpretation of the film, it's not that big of a deal. If I thought the majority of my reviews were meant to just get a rise out of people then I would be siding with you, but I am evolving. Years before I was more about contentious one lines and trying to assume a niche on the board. It was heartfelt in its own way, but I knew I needed to mostly get beyond that. Now I feel I am more about trying to rationalize a position. My position may still be disagreeable and on a different theoretical level, but I think it's more even handed with its approach.
In the end, the reason why I believe my tone isn't too jarring or overwhelming compared to other people on the board is that I remember I used to get kudos from people when I praised a film they liked and everything I said connected to something they could admire but I remember I would get very unfavorable comments a week later about my tone from the same people when I said the wrong thing about a film they liked. It's worked like that with me and again, I don't believe I am angelic on the board, but I certainly don't believe my tone is what makes me stand out for the negative.
From Empire (http://www.empireonline.com/news/story.asp?NID=36253):
Undead road trip comedy Zombieland was a shot of pure fun when it burst on to the screen in 2009. But while there have been occasional moans of life from a sequel that has been gestating almost since the first movie arrived, it seems the concept's home will be on television, since Amazon is now developing Zombieland as a TV show.
Back in 2011, it looked like US broadcast network CBS would be the channel to pick it up, but not much more was heard beyond the release of some casting pages that showed the producers looking to find people to play Tallahassee, Columbus, Wichita and Little Rock – as assayed in the film by Woody Harrelson, Jesse Eisenberg, Emma Stone and Abigail Breslin respectively – with a couple of original additions to boost the ensemble.
Now, though, Broadcast Now (via io9) brings word that Amazon is looking to get the series produced with the intention of showing it on its instant video service, much the same way as Netflix is planning a new series of Arrested Development and the American take on House Of Cards.
It's all early days right now, but it could be a good fit for the service, even if it means the Zombieland show might not get quite as wide an audience as one of the big broadcast networks. Then again, it wouldn't have the crushing ratings expectations and would be able to push the envelope in the same way as HBO or Showtime across the pond.
Lest you think the ideas won't stretch, think again: original writers Paul Wernick and Rhett Reese first planned the script as a TV show pilot, so this is simply the wheel turning once more. We suspect we've got a ways to go before anything solid emerges on either front, but we would certainly be open to a return visit to the zombie-infested world. We're keeping up with our cardio just in case.