Quick Bites - Now Playing: Serious Zombieland

Wow, Wednesday, already. I had this plan that I’d blog everyday this week and most of the posts would be about Ewan McGregor because I saw The Men Who Stare at Goats on Monday night and am heading to Amelia tonight and he's in both films. But, as you can see that did not work out. I was going to make two lists of Ewan movies, one good column, one bad and make humorous comments on each one. Do you know how many bad Ewan McGregor movies there are out there? Like at least 15.

Anyway, maybe that will happen. I’m not promising anything with 2 movies this week, the impending city-wide riot that is sure to occur if the Phils take it tonight and keeping up with the DVR...if only I could free up more time by not having this silly healthcare providing day job? Come on public option! In the meantime, here's some quick bites for the Coen Brothers new one and Zombieland.



A Serious Man
105 min
limited release

OK, this doesn’t happen often, but I am at somewhat of a loss when it comes to this movie. The Coen brothers are some of my favorite filmmakers and while I haven’t loved everything, I usually still get their films. This one, I don’t get.



A Serious Man is a tale about a pathetic nice guy and Midwestern Jewish physics professor named Larry Gopnick who faces a tenure board and a whole host of other problems including a student trying to bribe him for a passing grade and taking care of his probably autistic unemployed brother. Oh, and his wife is now dating Sy Ableman and wants a Get – a ritual divorce on top of a real one. Sounds hilarious. No, I’m serious. I can see this being really funny in the Coens’ hands. But, I couldn’t seem to laugh at the grotesque portrayals of the Jewish people at the center of the story.

Yes, I know the Coen bros are Jewish, so it’s OK for them to make fun of their tribe, but Larry Gopnick is an unsympathetic putz. And his family is horrible. As he struggles to find meaning in these terrible things life’s thrown at him he visits rabbi after rabbi, along with Jewish cliché after cliché, and an odd detachment beings to form. It’s a sick Schadenfreudian exercise that touches on the bleak and hopeless. And yet every element of the film is perfect. Every detail and line is clearly meticulously considered, but that doesn’t make it not boring. Don’t even get me started pot smoking Bar Mitzvah boy. I just didn’t think getting weed in Minnesota in 1967 would be that easy. At least I learned something.

Do you have to be Jewish to enjoy A Serious Man? No. I think you have to be Jewish and hate yourself to really get into it. I grew up in and around a wonderful Jewish family and some of these characters sort of pissed me off. The accents, the throat clearing, the phony mysticism, the fact that none of it matters in the end – it’s not a dark comedy, it’s just really dark and a little hateful.

But, maybe that’s the whole point with A Serious Man. Like I said, I didn’t get it.

**1/2/*****


Zombieland
88 min
playing everywhere

A fast-paced and relatively clever structure along Woody Harrelson fuckin’ makes Zombieland despite those moments here and there when Jesse Eisenberg is possessed by Michael Cera. Which, if you think about it, that would be really scary in real life if it happened to a loved one, you know?

You’ve see the previews. It’s sometime in the now, mad cow disease makes humans into flesh eating Zombie types – standard zombie apocalypse shit. Our hero, known as Columbus (as in Ohio) (Eisenberg), is an unlikely survivor with his loner mind set and panophobic tendencies, but he’s smart and can run pretty fast. He literally has a list of rules that have gotten him this far and breaks one of them by pairing up with a zombie killing enthusiast he calls Tallahassee (Woody Hareleson) whose mission is to find some Twinkies before all of them expire. Oh, and to exact revenge on zombies for killing a loved one.

Columbus and Tallahassee run into some quirky girls just as hell bent on surviving except they’re headed for Pacific Funland right outside LA ‘cause they hear it’s zombie free which makes zero sense. Of course the girls are sisters Wichita (Emma Stone) and Little Rock (Abigail Breslin) and they know how to handle weapons as all of us will need to learn before the impending apocalypse, with or without zombies. And the older one (Stone) seems to have made it a priority in her survival strategery to never leave the “house” without lots and lots of eyeliner. What unfolds is a relatively predictable (save one incredible cameo) misfit family road trip and eventual showdown with hundreds of zombies and a limited bullet supply.

Zombieland is not a horror movie, which is a plus for me, and the flesh eating looks like they used a combination of spaghetti and grape jelly. And there might be a pretty offensive scene where the foursome destroys a bunch of Native American chachkas. That is if you find that sort of stuff distasteful. And yes, it’s totally about young Columbus getting some and the main characters are never actually in any peril so if you’re expecting a standard zombie movie, you’ll be sorely disappointed. It’s not Shawn of the Dead scary (don’t laugh at me; I got scared a few times watching that) but it’s just as funny.

***1/2/*****