Web of Lies: Casting old farts

Well, it was a matter of time before we moved from casting hotness like this:
To casting hotness like this:
And this:
The new Spider-man movie is apparently determined to cast things as on-the-nose as possible and has selected Sally Field and Martin Sheen (supposedly) to play Aunt May and Uncle Ben, respectively (wouldn't it be great if it was the other way around...now THAT would be some inspired casting). Whatever. I mean, it works. I like both of them as actors, it was just nice to see some people we weren't as familiar with in those roles so they could really become them as people. Don't get me wrong, after all those years as President Bartlett, if Sheen commanded me to do anything, I would respond "I serve at the pleasure of the President" and run into traffic or whatever. It's just...sigh...you know the cast is finally rounded out, and I like Emma Stone (that's an understatement) and think Andrew Garfield could do a nice job, even though he looks nothing like Peter in my opinion. But the villain is Rhys Ifans...who is The Lizard...who kind of sucks as a villain. And they're using Gwen Stacy...but she's played by a girl who should be MJ. And they're casting good actors in the adult roles...but they're so familiar and obvious. Look, it's just that if you're going to REBOOT things, it would be nice to see some creativity. That's all. This by-the-books stuff is just exhausting.

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Emma Stone FINALLY cast as...WAIT WHO?

You sing and dance it up, Emma Stone! You just landed a role everyone knew you were going to get: You're going to be in the new Spider-man as Gwen Stacy. Wait...what? But...but you were supposed to be MJ! How can people look past your red hair (that's really blond but you dye it red) and spunky personality? Why, you'll have to...ACT now!!!! Look, I love that she's in this movie (and that we can stop with the rumors about it), but I do kind of hate that she's Gwen Stacy. Why? Because I always envisioned Gwen as that shy, sweet girl-next-door, the girl who never did anything wrong in her whole life, who is sweet but not full of life and personality, who is your first love but not complex or varied enough to settle down with. What always struck me about how they handled it in the comics was that you could love Gwen AND love MJ for two very different reasons, and there were ways in which MJ was superior. I can't imagine them casting a better MJ than Emma would have been. So maybe they won't. All this speculation has been based around them having two ladies in the movie, but I don't know that has ever been 100% confirmed. If they cast someone else as MJ, they are missing the boat. If they only had a role for one woman, I'll take Emma Stone any day of the week. I didn't mean that how it sounded (yes I did).

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Superheroine-ism

I figure I died sometime around 1:30 yesterday morning. As I suspected, going to a midnight movie on Thursday, writing a review and driving to Manhattan Kansas on Friday night, getting up at 5:30 am on Saturday and Sunday, before driving back to Omaha at 11:30 or so and watching my Bears get molested and broken by the Giants until 1:30 in the morning was a recipe for the death of my soul and mind. Oh, and this week just happens to have in it my brother-in-law and dear friend Cody's wedding at the end of it...and his bachelor party I'm throwing on Thursday night. So, you're going to have to forgive me for this week's bloggery, which will be absent totally on Friday, cut somewhat short today, and will likely be mediocre on the remaining days of the week, whatever those may be (Smorklesday? Is that a day? The one between Tuesday and Flootlesday?).

Let's kick off the shenanigans with a double-dose of the only real movie/TV news of the weekend...and it's all about the ladies.

First up: Here's MJ if she'll take it. Word is out that Emma Stone has been offered the role of Mary Jane Watson in the Spider-man reboot. The second piece of good news about the movie, after the fact that The Social Network proved Andrew Garfield is pretty damn good as an actor...even if he has a weirdly long neck. I'm not saying I'm EXCITED for this reboot now, because I'm not. I still think it's stupid. But if you have Garfield, Stone, and a really good villain (like Philip Seymour Hoffman as Venom...as has been drunkenly rumored), I may just end up liking it. That's the best I could hope for.

Second: Someone will be putting these on.
David E. Kelly, he of law shows, law shows, and law shows, is going to adapt a TV series out of "Wonder Woman," which is a terribly stupid idea. Superheroes should work on TV, but don't because the budgets are too small, so you inevitably have a lackluster confrontation in each episode. What we'll get will be some relationship-heavy, silly take on a relatively simple character. They should just make a movie, beef up her Greek origins, and really make something DC can be proud of. Oh, right, DC makes terrible entertainment outside of their comic books. Nevermind. This is about right. I look forward to the wave of nubile actresses from Nickelodeon and Disney Channel who will be targeted to slink into Wonder Woman's underoos for a series that will be canceled 5 episodes in. I give it that long because we all know it will go to the WB and they don't cancel things quickly, because if they did, their channel would be all-static all the time.

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Web of Lies: Halfway to a good decision

And a good Friday morning to you, my sweet bloggies. If you're reading this, I just assume you watched "Community" and "30 Rock" last night. How great were those shows last night? This great.


"Because boobies, we got em." "Dogs used to eat me, but now they bring the paper in." Yeah, just incredible stuff. And the scene where everything you thought they'd take multiple episodes to reveal all came out: Ah-Maze-Ing. "30 Rock" had some great moments of it's own, including a hilarious "Mentalist" tote bag joke.

So combine my 2-0 Chicago Bears with hilarious Thursday night shows and today being Friday and you get a great mood that someone in Hollywood must sense. The scoop is this: we have our female leads for Spider-man: We're Going to Reboot This Shit Whether We Need to or Not. What? It's still a catchier title than "Turn Off the Dark" (apologies to U2). Supposedly, the following ladies have been reading with Andrew Garfield.

Mia Wasikowska (best known for Tim Burton's sucktastic suckfest Alice in Wonderland)

Emma MF Stone (best known for being insanely talented, hot, and generally awesome)

Obviously, we have ourselves Gwen Stacy and Mary Jane, right? I don't know about the former, as all I've seen her in was a movie that made Johnny Depp look stupid. The latter, that's just pitch-perfect casting yo. The problem is going to be getting me to believe I'd want the former and not the latter because, hello look at Emma Stone. But you know what, that works for the characters. MJ was always the hottie party girl and Gwen was the sweet girl next door. What's interesting about this casting is that, if it's true (and remember, it almost never is), are they setting us up to see Gwen get offed? I mean, Stone is CLEARLY the more known actress and as hot as she is right now, I doubt she'd be willing to play "supporting actress number 2" seeing as "supporting actress number 1" is usually not given more to do than run around, get kidnapped, and get water poured on her shirt in a superhero movie. Call me interested, as this may indicate they are at least considering the storyline that broke my heart and made me a man. Not like that.

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Movie Review: Easy A

This is the first of 3 movie reviews I'll be posting in a row, so hang on to your hats. The best part? It's mid-September and the lowest grade one of these films got was a B+. It was a good weekend, y'all. Let's start with the biggest surprise for me. I knew Easy A would be funny, I just didn't realize it would also be fantastic. From clever insights that capture the modern zeitgeist better than the internet critics believed Scott Pilgrim did to scathingly hilarious dialogue and delivery, I have nothing really bad to say about this little gem, other than you need to go see it. Now.

Dishonor Rolling in the Aisles
Easy A FTW


It’s fitting that the review of a movie about whoring through words should start with a verbal money shot, in the form of a pull quote: Easy A is easily the funniest movie of the year.

Sporting chlamydia as a subplot, discussion of vagina gnomes and multiple “Huckleberry Finn”–based biracial gay sex jokes, first-time screenwriter Bert Royal truly earned the marketing descriptor “not your typical teen comedy.” Bucking the trend of visual-based, low-brow guffaw moments, Easy A is all about the wordplay, with dialogue sharp enough to shave with and a cast comfortable using their tongues as razors. Death by a thousand cuts never felt so good.

Like Hollywood’s oppressive standard for actresses, Easy A’s plot is thin but sexy. Olive (Emma Stone) is a clever, cute nobody who only gets noticed when the high-school equivalent of Christine O’Donnell, Jesus-enthusiast Marianne (Amanda Bynes), overhears Olive lie about losing her virginity. When Olive’s gay friend Brandon (Dan Byrd) learns she allowed rumors of her fake sex life to persist, he begs her to engage in faux boot-knocking with him, in a genuinely moving, teary-eyed soliloquy about the life of a gay public school student.

Of course, when other social pariahs learn of Olive’s willingness to spread-eagle her reputation, they begin begging her to lie about fictional trysts with them. Faced with judgment from everyone but her adoring parents (Patricia Clarkson and Stanley Tucci) and favorite teacher (Thomas Haden Church), Olive embraces her role as a high-school Hester Prynne by emblazoning a red “A” on her increasingly skanktastic clothes. But Olive quickly learns that chaste behavior and a whorish reputation still make for a miserable existence.

Beyond the brilliance Royal brought to the page, director Will Gluck’s confident willingness to let his uber-talented cast freely riff breathes life to even the most mundane bridge scene. Tucci and Clarkson, professional scene stealers the both of them, gleefully plunder, while Stone proves herself to once more be blessed as much with perfect comic time as with anime-eyes and a gravel-road voice. Her supernova fame is simply inevitable.

Raunchy but packed with social skewering of holier-than-thous and reminders that girls should guard their reputations as stringently as their loins, Easy A is as laugh-laden as it is smart. It is further proof that female-centric comedies need not pander or lower themselves into rigid adherence to formula; they just need to be, you know, good.

Grade – A-

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When given the chance, YOU WORK WITH PTA

Speaking as someone whose best chance of working for PTA will come after I have children, when PTA (Paul Thomas Anderson) asks you to join his film...YOU JOIN HIS FILM. I don't care if the role is "mute who stands in the corner touching himself," if someone who may end up being this generation's Stanley Kubrick asks you to partake in his vision, you drop whatever lame-ass romantic-comedy, talking-dog tentpole, or reimagined TV-series-turned-movie you were working on and get your ass to whatever whacked out location he is using. Why am I ranting about the need to bow to every whim of the man behind Boogie Nights, Magnolia, Punch Drunk Love, and There Will Be Blood? Because The Playlist is reporting that PTA is no longer waiting for a studio to come to their senses and fund the project, he's putting his damn cast together NOW. As all proper devotees of this writer/director/demigod know, his next inevitable masterpiece is about Scientology. Except, it's not called Scientology to avoid getting sued, but it may as well be called Schmientology in the film it's that obvious. Philip Seymour Hoffman is playing "The Master" (L Ron Hubbard...I mean, J Don Blubbard) and Jeremy Renner is also set to star. It's time to add the ladies, and PTA is beginning with a doozy. The role of Hoffman's wife (in the movies, in real life NOBODY touches Philip Seymour Hoffman because, you know, gross) has been offered to....
This is great, because someone really needs to keep Reese from doing something like Four Christmases 2 (would that be 8 Christmases or is there some kind of multiplier I'm forgetting). As for the role of the daughter of Witherspoon and Hoffman (again, in the movie, because in real life, Hoffman doesn't even have genitals), there are three actresses in contention:

Deborah Ann Woll

Amanda Seyfried

Emma Stone

Now, that Deborah (I believe it's pronounced deb-ORR-ahh, like on MILF Island) is out because...hellooooo did you see those teeth? Right, I'm being told she's a vampire on "True Blood" and that's why she looks like that. My apologies, now she's out because she stars on "True Blood." Seyfried is probably out unless PTA includes a plot that involves her writing letters or reading letters or stealing letters from someone she loves in some way (and unless it's "Nicholas Sparks presents Schmientology). So that conveniently leaves the only person who should be considered: EMMA STONE! You know my love for her, you know her talent in my eyes, and you know that I love PTA for coming to the same conclusion. Further proof the man is a genius.

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Ryan's Junk Drawer

How is it Thursday already? I can hear you now: "It's Thursday because yesterday was Wednesday. A-duh. Didn't your mother ever teach you how to use a calendar? You must be kind of stupid, Ryan." Well, call me old fashioned, but I still believe that telling time is a sin, so I hope all you fancy clockwatching daycounters enjoy your time in hell. Here's what I do know. I know that Thursdays are the days we look at my junk. No, not like a trip to the "special doctor's office." By my "junk" I mean movie tidbits that aren't big enough to warrant their own blog post. We begin each week by looking at the creepy image of a junk drawer that was captured from the nightmare of a child and reprinted in Highlights Magazine (FOR CHILDREN). We select one item from above and make a wacky story about it, because doing so amuses me (and probably no one else). Today's item is the green and red thing in the lower right corner. On the one hand, when Carlos invented the world's first pancreas grown entirely from algae, he was elated. It meant that all those years combining peg fetuses with swamp water wasn't just wasted time. On the other hand, if it could be transplanted into a human, it would likely mean that his mother-in-law would live. Carlos did what anyone would do: He put the pulsating green human/plant organ back into his junk drawer, never to mention his accomplishment to anyone.

Okay, enough weirdness, we have a great show for you tonight, Jay-Z is here, so stick around and we'll be right back.

Here are the top five minor news stories right now:

1.) Muppets + "Lost" = (Sound of Ryan's head popping like a Capri Sun that's improperly poked with a straw) - So...by now you know all about my "Muppet boner," which is maybe the most disgusting and inappropriate way to mention how much I adore the fuzzy creations of Jim Henson that are part nightmare and part pure joy. You also know that my passion for "Lost" may exceed my passion for 99% of humans on this big blue ball. Well if you combine the two, you pretty much just guaranteed I'm not going to get much else done. What you see before you is the merging of two worlds that I can only hope continues. I can only hope that next week I'm showing you a video of Spider-man's guest appearance on "Community" or Evangeline Lilly's surprise cameo in my house. It's rare that things I love merge, so look upon this union of things that are awesome and rejoice.



2.) Mark Millar: Professional Bullshitter - If Mark Millar ever tires of writing comics, he can successfully enter the world of politics, having told yet another in a series of lies that are designed to make him look good. He's like a guy trying to pick up a girl at a bar by telling her he's an astronaut...only it's never closing time and he'll sleep with ANYONE. A recent press release,
which you can see at Forces of Geek, states that Kick Ass 2: Balls to the Wall is going to start filming in 2011 for a 2012 release. Sigh, I don't know why I even acknowledge this, but let's quickly deconstruct this so I can go back to thinking about Muppets. (1) - Matthew Vaughn, director of the very incredible Kick Ass, just signed to direct a movie within the next year called X-Men First Class. He's going to be a little busy into 2011. (2) - Christopher Mintz-Plasse, McLovin', is pivotal to the second film (if you've seen the first, you know why). His official Twitter count basically said that Millar is spewing bullshit....again. (3) - Even though I loved the movie, as clear a sign that I can separate the art from the artist if I've ever done it, it wasn't a huge hit. It was a modest hit. I'm guessing if it does well in DVD/Blu-Ray sales, that will be taken into consideration. Plus, I'm guessing you can do the sequel pretty cheap. I don't doubt everyone is INTERESTED in doing this, but it isn't a sure thing yet. In other words, sell your booze-laced, cologne-infused pick-up lines for some other floozy, Millar. This one's not biting.

3.) Dark Tower is finally coming! Booooooo - Even though people have wanted to see Stephen King's "Dark Tower" series is among the most beloved of the author's works, not one of them should be happy about the news that a movie is finally happening. Why? Because the people who now own the rights are Brian Grazer...and Ron Howard. Howard, who has been sliding from mediocrity to outright hackitude for a decade now, is talking about making a movie that would lead into a TV show. In the right hands, I'd say "this is how the material should be handled." In Howard's hand, I say "ruh-roh, Raggy." You just know he's going to invite crapmaster Akiva Goldsman in to write the thing. His writing is so wretched, so irredeemably awful that we'd be best lighting our minds on fire as an alternative to watching something he wrote. Let's just agree to read some books and pretend that this bit of news never happened, mkay?

4.) Emma Stone all the time - News regarding Emma Stone has been coming fast and furious lately. Good. Ever since I saw her in Superbad I knew she would be superhuge. She's got this great gravel voice, kind of looks like an anime girl would look in real life (seriously, her eyes are half of her face), and she has a personality that, goshdurnit, is just infectious.

It's funny that this next bit of news pairs her with Catherine Keener, who has a lot of those same traits (other than the whole anime thing). Keener is, to me, the actress almost all young starlets should pattern their career after. She makes big hits, little indie gems, and is always awesome. The two of them are not going to appear in a film together. But they've both agreed to voice characters in The Croods, another Dreamworks animated film. Unlike some of the other minor works from the studio, this caveman comedy is based on a screenplay in part developed by John Cleese, who white people know from Monty Python (in one of the funniest conversations I've ever heard, a non-white friend of mine mentioned that any time a white dude said something that made another white dude laugh but my friend couldn't understand why, it was always a Monty Python reference). Nicholas Cage and Ryan Reynolds are also voices in there, but Stone's voice will stand out. She's got a perfect voice for such things. Love.

5.) Trailers, Parked - We've got a raunchy killer, a cool killer, and a killer tire for you this week.

First up...what has been dubbed the "illegal" Machete trailer. You remember that this is the movie that sprang from Grindhouse's fake trailer. It has a ton of people in it that are moderately famous (and DeNiro, who just used to be famous), and has a story that gives the middle finger to Arizona's immigration practices before they were even real. Wrap your mind grapes around that one. This one has naughty language in it, but if you're clicking on the trailer for a movie called Machete, you had to kind of figure, right?



George Clooney as an assassin? I could explain The American more than that, but I don't think I have to. Here's the trailer.


This is a movie about a killer tire with mental powers. It's called Rubber and it will now be your new obsession. Yes it's real. Yes it's a killer tire. Enjoy, America.



Okay, that's it for my weekly junk. You can now feel free to move about the cabin.

Crazy, stupid, awesome cast

The movie once titled Crazy, Stupid Love is no longer called that. It does, however, still sport a crazy, stupid, awesome cast that is only getting crazier, stupider, and more awesomer. We already knew that Steve Carell was going to play a father whose "life unravels as he deals with spousal problems," a plot that sounds only slightly more original and specific than "a wacky couple falls in love and a misunderstanding keeps them apart." We also knew that this guy was going to be in it.

His name is Ryan Gosling, and he used to be famous. Why he isn't in more movies I simply cannot know. He's a good-lookin' fellow who used to date Rachel McAdams (+10 charisma) and got an Oscar nomination for playing a crack-head teacher. I like that he's reemerging from whatever bizarre dungeon he's been confined to for being a hunk who can act, but it's weird that he's suddenly back...in a Steve Carell movie. We also knew that Kevin Bacon and Emma Stone were included. Obligatory Emma Stone photo:

Now we know that the cast is getting even more bestester. Yeah, that's right, despite ALREADY having Kevin Bacon, the film decided to really up the ante by adding....Josh Friggin' Groban. Most of you know Groban from his whiny, girly music and his Jonas Brother-esque appearance. What you DON'T know about him is that he's also an avid MMA fighter and explosives expert. Oh, sure, he performs beautiful songs that your mom loves. But at night...at night Groban enters back-alley hobo fights and builds his own explosives. He's killed 73 men and this acting gig is just another way to convince potential opponents that he's off their game. When they're not expecting it...WHAMMO: They're Grobaned. I'm just kidding, he's a big pussy. But he is in this movie, so that's lame.

Also in the movie is Marisa Tomei, who is aging so well that I'm only marginally convinced she's some kind of nosferatu. This is her now.

She's almost 50. I think she'll likely play Carell's wife, but here's hoping that she gets to romp with Gosling. She deserves it. Plus, I buy that she'd go for him before Carell and that both would want her. This turned into a very salty post. Apologies.

Tuesday Quick Hits

It's a weird Tuesday. There's a bunch of low-level news floating about like purple horseshoes in my Lucky Charms bowl, and I couldn't decide whether to eat up now or save them until after I ate the far-more nutritious but far-less tasty non-marshmallow material. I could stretch one or two of these into full posts and save others until my junk is unleashed upon the world on Thursday...or I could just do the equivalent of a mini-junk exposure right now. I went with the latter.

Here are some weird and unimportant news nuggets for your Tuesday. See, I can shake things up.

1.) Spinach sponsors, get ready - Variety announced that Sony is making a 3D, CGI Popeye movie. Two thoughts: (1) - The last time we had a Popeye movie, it looked like this:

And that was WITH one of the greatest directors in history at the helm (Robert Altman). Allow me to submit the theory that Popeye is as unfilmable as the true face of God, as Thomas Pynchon's "Gravity's Rainbow," as an enjoyable Lindsey Lohan movie. Unless, of course, they base the CGI on Rick Baker's character design.
ENJOY KIDS!

2.) I told you so - Much, much shorter news, but Chris Evans has accepted as Captain America. With that, one of the strangest chapters in comic book adaptations closes. Now, who's going to play Bucky? Throw ole John Krasinski a bone, I could see him in that role.

3.) I told you so, part deux - Wes Craven IS going to come back to direct Scream 4 in between diaper changes. What? Dude is like 117 years old now. We still have no real grasp on what it is the movie will be about, but if original screenwriter Kevin Williams has a brain in his head, he'll make it about remakes somehow. I think the bringing together of the original cast (for the most part) is a good sign that remake skewering may be part of the point. Say what you will, that first Scream was positive genius, starting with the "one scene" marketing campaign featuring a never-hotter Drew Barrymore. Sadly, Neve Campbell is now approaching menopause. You can't go for the same audience, I hope Wes and Kev target the original audience with something clever and not a quick cash grab. Oh, and here's also hoping talk of a new "trilogy" is bullshit.

4.) Crappy video game movie will not die - I loved Spy Hunter as a kid. The cool music (bum bum bum bum bum, bum bum bum bum bum) and the simple but awesome game play were rad...back when "rad" was a word people used. I never once thought, "hey, this purple car driven by some person I never see should really be a movie. I mean, think of the rich characterization that can be had when he encounters an oil slick." Never. Well, over the last decade (no lie), about a dozen false starts have been initiated regarding this scintillating potential franchise...about A GUY DRIVING A FANCY SPY CAR. Another attempt at life is now forthcoming. Whether or not we see this, just know that America is committed to having a movie about a guy driving a spy car. We got health care passed, we can get this too.

5.) I love you, Emma Stone, but... - I think Emma Stone can be a lovely, gravel-voiced megastar.
She's got all of the talent necessary and has made some great flicks (ie, Superbad, Zombieland) but has also made some bad ones (The Rocker) and may be making another one. She's in talks to star in The Help, about a black maid in the South in the 1960s who "speaks candidly." Um, that sounds like terrible race bait material to me. I wouldn't touch that film with a thousand foot pole. How does that not come off either cliched or condescending. Emma, listen, you have a gift. You're both uniquely hot and have an awesome voice. Use that to seek out awesome and intelligent material and not, you know, this crap. If you need further help, you just call me. I'll be here.

Okay, so that's the news that's semi-fit-to-print today.

Movie Review: Zombieland

I think I enjoyed this at an "A" level but could only justify a "B" rating...so I split the difference. Things I couldn't get in the review for wordcount reasons: (1) Avoid the cameo spoiler if you can. It's soooooo gooood if you don't know it's coming. (2) It's really not a true horror movie. Sure, there's a few boogity-boogity-boo moments and quite a bit of vomited blood and splatter, but it's really just funny. My wife saw it and didn't have zombie nightmares, and having zombie nightmares is pretty much what she does. Anyway, here's the review:

Mutilation Vacation
Zombieland proves road trips are more fun with corpses

How’s this for a comparison? If Sean of the Dead is the Citizen Kane of horror comedy, Zombieland is the genre’s Singin’ in the Rain. Mind blowing, right? Director Ruben Fleischer and writers Rhett Reese and Paul Wernick have made the first toe-tappingly cheerful, downright optimistic film about the downfall of humanity due to cannibalistic carnage. To put it another way, if you’ve ever had this much fun with dead bodies before, you’re probably in jail.

Realizing that audiences speak fluent apocalypse and no longer need a primer on the ins and outs of zombies, Reese and Wernick begin well after the evil outbreak. A snarky, self-aware voiceover from Columbus (Jesse Eisenberg), our Michael Cera–esque hero, describes how he’s used his neuroses to stay alive. This leads to one of the most gorgeous, disgusting opening sequences, filled with well-composed cinematography and copious amounts of bloody vomit.

Columbus joins up with Tallahassee (Woody Harrelson), a character destined to be etched into cult status quicker than you can say Bruce Campbell, and, shortly thereafter, the duo meets up with (and gets conned by) Witchita (Emma Stone) and Little Rock (Abigail Breslin). The characters use the name of destinations to avoid giving away their real identities, and thus a piece of themselves, to strangers they aren’t quite sure they won’t have to slaughter. Once united, the gang meanders, hopping vehicles and chopping up wayward reanimated corpses; you know, just like all family vacations.

Although ostensibly a horror film, the scariest thing about Zombieland is that it’s likely going to make Woody Harrelson famous again. His violent, one-liner spouting redneck in search of a Twinkie is a perfect foil for the razor-tongued, Woody Allen–light Eisenberg, and the combination coyly animates the nuanced dialogue and clever gags rife in the script. As for the females, Breslin is fine in a thankless role, whereas Stone sizzles with smoky eyes and smoldering voice subtly demanding she become the next big thing.

What’s problematic is mostly expected: The bad-ass girls become beautiful bait by the end, and the now generic feel of all things zombie permeates. Also, the film was pitched as a television show, so the final moments feel more like a pilot than a true cinematic denouement. That said, the film’s overtly reiterates Columbus’s rule about enjoying small things for a reason: as a hope-filled horror comedy, Zombieland is a terribly enjoyable small thing.

Grade – B+