Adventureland: I'm More Excited for "Zombieland"

Everyone's worked at a job they hated. Some people do that for a few years when they're teenagers, or just out of college, and some people do it for longer. Adventureland is the story of James Brennan (Jesse Eisenberg), a college graduate that's having difficulty finding a real job to get ready for graduate school. The only job he can get ends up being as a carny of sorts, working in the Games for the local summer amusement park Adventureland. There are shenanigans, that kind of boring girl from Twilight, and some people from SNL. Ryan Reynolds is there, too, but his character's kind of a jerk. It was written and directed by Greg Mottola, the director of Superbad. One thing about the guy, he knows how to write up some awkward and basically intelligent characters (with the exception of a few, but that's normal).

Also, one of the things that I can't help connecting in my mind is the upcoming film Zombieland, which also stars Jesse Eisenberg, and also has -land in the title. Part of me really hopes that Zombieland is an unofficial sequel. If I see that kid in a "Games Games Games" t-shirt in the zombie movie, I just might lose my shiz. Unfortunately, the anticipation of a totally different movie with a similar title and one shared actor. The movie isn't terrible, but it isn't fantastic. It has some good moments, some good lines, and some interesting characters, but that's pretty much it.

But wait, there's more! Well, not much more. Plot-wise, it's relatively complicated, actually. James Brennan (Eisenberg) has just graduated with his Bachelor's degree, and is now gearing up for a big summer abroad before going to grad school. Unfortunately, his parents (Jack Gilpin and Wendie Malick) are having financial difficulties, and won't be able to help him with the trip, or really for graduate school. He finds himself virtually unemployable, and ends up working in Games for Adventureland, a summer theme park in the town. There, he meets some girls, some weird guys, the cool but kind-of-a-jerk maintenance man (played by Ryan Reynolds), and eventually makes his plans for the fall, which he then departs from drastically by the end of the movie to be with Kristen Stewart's character. It has some great cameo appearances by Bill Hader and Kristen Wiig, who play the proprietors of the park, and are relatively crazy. He also gets to hang out with his childhood friend Frigo, who punches him in the nuts a lot (and is played by that kid from the phone commercials that never wants to use "old minutes," you know the one).

It's a bit more dramatic than I was anticipating based on the previews, and I didn't really hear too many opinions or see many reviews for it. Granted, I rarely seek out reviews (which seems odd, since I sort-of write reviews several times a week), but still. It was a pretty low-key release, with few actors that can really be considered top-level, but it was pretty entertaining.

Now, she isn't the most terrible thing in the world. She's ... just kind of bland, and doesn't really seem to jump into any character she's playing. Luckily, I think people tend to cast her in roles that are kind of plain and relatively boring, so she doesn't really have to work all that hard. For some reason, I felt myself noticing a lot of her mannerisms, and they're annoying as all hell. She does the same hair-fixing motion when she's distressed, or hungry, or amused, or drunk.

The film feels very much like a high-school coming-of-age story, but virtually all the characters are in their 20s, at least. Maybe because Jesse Eisenberg's character is a virgin, but still, it's an unusual sensation. Maybe it's some sort of commentary, that we never really grow out of the crappy jobs, the weird relationships, the uncertain futures, and the money troubles of youth. Even his parents are having problems, and don't seem to have their own clearly defined directions. Or maybe I'm overthinking it. It's probably just a dumb little movie about a weird job at an amusement park.

Basically, it's decent, but only if you really want to see it. I don't know if it would be worth it to spend money on. Luckily for me, the Lady's sister had rented it, and we filched it, so, score! Free movie, right? I'd say it's amusing, more dramatic than it initially seemed, and kind of made me think about how interesting and rewarding my life actually is. I'd give it two and a half punches in the nuts from that phone commercial kid out of five, or two and a half blank, soulless and empty staring eyes of Kristen Stewart out of five.

Zack and Miri Make A Porno: Um, Enough Said?

Fifteen years ago, this fat comic book nerd from New Jersey got a bunch of his friends to be in a movie that he filmed in the convenience store in which he worked. That movie was Clerks, and it was actually pretty impressive and awesome. It was well written, decently acted, considering virtually everyone on screen had never acted before, and it became a cult classic. He turned that popularity into a movie franchise based around the exploits of Jay and Silent Bob, played by his friend Jason Mewes and himself. And what does he do with that kind of clout? He makes a movie in which Seth Rogen, a chubby, hairy man, becomes the average joe's porn star. The film also stars Elizabeth Banks as Miri, Jason Mewes as a porn star, Craig Robinson as Zack's co-worker that serves as the porno's producer, and Traci Lords and Katie Morgan playing porn stars, which is a real stretch for them.

Seriously though, this movie is extremely decent. It's an interesting idea, bizarrely executed, and was fascinatingly cast. I'm of the firm belief that this entire film was imagined, produced, casted, written, shot, and acted while completely blitzed on pot. I haven't enjoyed a comedy about the porn industry this much since Trey Parker and Matt Stone came out with Orgazmo. Like my review of Inglourious Basterds, this film is a pretty big departure for Kevin Smith, in terms of principal cast, the fact that he doesn't star with Jason Mewes as Jay and Silent Bob, the location (Monroeville, PA instead of New Jersey), and that it doesn't take place in the supposed "View Askewniverse" as far as we know. Despite the new directions (except the general content/themes are pretty standard Kevin Smith fare), the film performs admirably. Get it? It's kind of a sex pun. Trust me, it's funny.

Zack and Miri have been friends since grade school. They live in an apartment together in Monroeville, Pennsylvania, and they share a car. They both work crappy jobs, though we don't actually see Miri doing hers. Zack works in a coffee shop. And all their utilities are getting shut off. They go to their 10th high school reunion, only to find that everyone's still kind of annoying, and that Miri's high school crush Bobby Long (played by Brandon Routh) is gay, and in a relationship with Brandon St. Randy (Justin Long), a gay porn star. This gives Zack a brilliant idea: to solve their money problems, they decide to make a porno, convinced that at least the several hundred members of their graduating class would want to buy it. They manage to recruit a stripper, a random guy named Lester, a bacheolor party entertainer, another random dude, and Zack's friend and goalie for their hockey team to help them make their movie. Along the way, Zack and Miri find that they may or may not have feelings for one another, which makes filming this bizarre, half-formed and insane porn movie exceedingly complicated. And there's a lot of weird sex, a lot of crazy and hilarious dialogue, and a lot of wacky shenanigans.

This film is definitely not family-friendly. There are almost 300 f-bombs dropped during the course of the film, plenty of simulated sex, naked butts, naked breasts, and ... well, all I can say is I feel bad for Jeff Anderson's character. He's the cinematographer, and he has to get pretty close and personal with shooting some of the scenes. It's refreshing to see Jason Mewes as a character other than the foul-mouthed drug dealing Jay character, and he's surprisingly good in his role as Lester. After so many Judd Apatow films, it's also nice to see Seth Rogen in a film with a little bit of a different flavor. It does share a lot of similarities with the typical Apatow fare, though, but to be honest, Kevin Smith has been doing it longer. I think. Yeah, that's probably right.

It's immensely hilarious, raunchy, and strange. The dialogue is pretty classic Kevin Smith, too. What Quentin Tarantino can do with his bizarre crime stories, Kevin Smith can do with wacky romantic raunchy comedies. The characters are interesting and engaging, and are relatively round, surprisingly. Even some of the secondary characters are like that. Craig Robinson's character grows quite a bit throughout the film, and both Zack and Miri make some real progress in their personal lives.

I give the film three and a half awkward and tender porn-star love scenes out of five, or three and a half "please don't say shit covered" scenes out of five. You'll get it when you watch it.

Inglourious Basterds: Spelling Nazis Beware, They'll Kill You, Too

Seriously, everyone. Please, please, for the love of crap-in-a-hat, stop spelling Inglourious Basterds "correctly." I don't think it's too much to ask. We shouldn't have to put a sic next to a movie title, right? Regardless, if you haven't heard of it yet, Inglourious Basterds is Quentin Tarantino's newest film, based basically on the premise of "Once upon a time in Nazi-occupied France..." It's pretty typical of Quentin these days, and is somewhat formulaic in the vein of Kill Bill (due to chapter breaks with amusing little titles). It doesn't really star any of the typical Tarantino cast, though, which is interesting and refreshing.

It also stars several natural German and French actors, speaking their native languages, which is also extremely refreshing. I'm sick and tired of movies portraying different countries as speaking English with vague accents, or worse, random British accents. I'm sorry, but Reichminister Goebbels wouldn't have spoken in English with a German accent, he spoke German. So it's good that they do it that way. And the few transitions they make into English seem a little ham-handed at first, but actually make sense for the scene. It stars Brad Pitt, B.J. Novak, Eli Roth, Mélanie Laurent, Christoph Waltz, Diane Kruger, Daniel Brühl, Til Schweiger, and Omar Doom. It's one of the largest casts that I've seen Tarantino use, though I get the vague sense that we don't get to know any one character particularly well, which is ok, I guess, because almost all characters are Nazis or Nazi-killing American Jewish soldiers.

This film is extraordinarily gory and violent. That is extremely awesome. As for plot, it's pretty simple. Do you hate Nazis? Well, the Basterds do. They're a collection of American Jewish soldiers and several German/Austrian soldiers, one an immigrant, and one recruited from a prison (he was imprisoned for killing 13 Nazis, which Brad Pitt's character Aldo Raine considers "amateurish" but with promise). They basically kill lots of Nazis. They scalp them, too. The Nazis give Lt. Raine the nickname "Aldo the Apache," and they give Sgt. Donny Donowitz (Roth) the nickname of "The Bear Jew," because he is huge, fairly hairy, and also kills Nazis with a baseball bat, which everyone knows bears are wont to do. Simultaneously, Shosanna Dreyfus (Laurent) is on the run from the Nazis, and especially Col. Hans Landa (Waltz), the "Jew Hunter" responsible for killing her family. She owns a cinema in France, and when a young soldier/actor, Pvt. Fredrick Zoller (Brühl) fancies her, he convinces Reichminister Joseph Goebbels (Sylvester Groth) to premier their big movie there. This catches the eye of the British intelligence, as well as the Basterds, and of course Shosanna. They all basically decide they want to blow up the cinema in order to kill a large number of Nazis, including Goebbels and Hitler himself. Oh, and Mike Myers plays a British General working with Churchill.

They kill lots and lots of Nazis in extremely bloody, gory, gratuitous, and amazing ways. I probably laughed at inappropriate places, too, but there's something about Quentin Tarantino's timing, pacing, and dialogue taht entertains and amuses me, even amidst a shower of blood, brains, bullets, etc. Especially amidst all that disgusting human offal and detritus.

Tarantino makes this film simultaneously the most accessible film he's made in a long time, as well as the most shockingly controversial and violent. It stars some really big actors (like Pitt and the crazy little cameo by Myers), features some incredibly talented and prominent German and French actors, but also is entirely based on extreme violence against Nazis. Of course, its a touchy subject for a great number of people, with good reason. It's somewhat unusual in the timing, as well. it has the feel of a reactionary film, and seems like it's in response to the war as if it happened just a few years ago, instead of sixty.

It may be shallow, but on e of my favorite parts of the movie was Pitt's crazy weird American accent. He mispronounced virtually every foreign word that he came across, as well as most of the English ones. It's also immensely long, at two and a half hours. It's worth it, and entertaining every second. I haven't seen Tarantino dialogue done more in French and German than in English, and it translates surprisingly well, and very little is lost in the subtitles and strange pacing of German. Of course, it literally translates well, because, duh. I mean that it's still obviously Tarantino dialogue, despite the different language.

It's also surprisingly historically accurate (for the most part). There are a lot of little nods and notes to the German cinema and its history. You may not know, but the war was a great boon for their film industry, and in many ways, it wouldn't exist in the same state as it does now without the propaganda films that Goebbels produced during the war. It was also a great way to keep the German citizens informed, pacified, and used as a recruiting tool. The meta-film that is created within Inglourious Basterds is basically what would have happened if Tarantino was making movies during World War 2. Even the posters on display in the lobby are modernized, which I found amusing. Film was very much used as a weapon during the war (over there and over here), and it's used as a trap very effectively in the plot of the film. It also serves as a vague propaganda film on its own, though fifty years too late. It glorifies the actions of the British and American military, vilifies the Nazis without victimizing them, and gives very little justification to the actions of either party.

It's a pretty fantastic movie, but it may make you nauseous. The Lady was awfully queasy for a few hours afterwards, but she enjoyed it regardless. I give it four sacks of Nazi scalps out of five, or four extremely angry, bat-wielding ginormous Jews out of five.

Forgetting Sarah Marshall: Unforgettably Excellent

Last year, that tall guy from How I Met Your Mother starred in Forgetting Sarah Marshall, which he also wrote. It co-starred Kristen Bell, Mila Kunis, Paul Rudd, Russell Brand, and Jonah Hill, and there are definitely some shenanigans going on. It was directed by some dude I'd never heard of before, Nicholas Stoller, but that's ok. It's one of those movies that doesn't need Kubrick or Welles, it just needs someone to point the camera at the funny stuff that's happening. There's nothing wrong with a decent movie that relies primarily on awkwardness, great dialogue, and interesting songs sung by two characters. Also, there's a sex competition. Yes, you heard me. It is just as awesome as it sounds. Also, it was produced by Judd Apatow, so it automatically falls into the crazy category of Knocked Up and The 40 Year Old Virgin.

I greatly enjoy these kinds of movies, where virtually every line is something you kind of want to quote to other people. Sometimes it gets annoying (like when every moron that you bumped into wanted to yell "Yeah, baby!" after seeing Austin Powers), but it can be good, too. The music and songs are pretty decent, too. Segel's character is a musician, writing songs for a (decidedly terrible but incredibly apt parody) crime show starring his girlfriend, the titular Sarah Marshall, played by Kristen Bell. He's trying to write a Dracula musical. Seriously! It's pretty awesome. I am bummed out that the only spin-off from this movie is Get Him to the Greek, with Russell Brand and Jonah Hill. I wish I could see the real Dracula musical. I demand that it be produced! I demand it!

Peter Bretter (Segel) is a pretty talented dude, who works as a composer for Crime Scene: Scene of the Crime, a crime show parody based on shows like CSI: (which also co-stars William Baldwin, in a spot-on David Caruso parody). His long-time girlfriend Sarah Marshall (Bell) co-stars on the show, though he starts to feel unimportant and uncomfortable in the spotlight. She breaks up with him at the start of the movie, leaving him naked and vulnerable (quite literally). His step-brother Brian (Bill Hader) tries to cheer him up, but he is only vaguely comforted by random sex with strangers. Eventually, he escapes by going to Hawai'i, to a hotel that Sarah talked about often, where he meets Rachel (Kunis), a cute and adventurous customer service/front desk worker at the hotel. They get close, while Sarah shows up at the hotel as well with her new boyfriend Aldous Snow (Russell Brand), a completely ridiculous musician. There are basically lots of shenanigans involving sex, ex-lovers, new lovers, songs about Dracula, Jonah Hill making Peter feel awkward, making Aldous feel awkward, and then an insane scene where Sarah and Aldous try to out-sex Peter and Rachel. Also, Paul Rudd is a surf instructor named Chuck, or Kunu (which means Chuck in Hawai'ian). It's funny.

Okay, so there's some nudity. Okay, so there's a lot of nudity. Yes, most of it is Jason Segel. Yes, it is full-frontal. It ... It is a pretty awkward scene. Harrowing stuff. What nightmares are made of. Not really, but seriously. I had to close my eyes. Luckily, it's at the beginning, so if you can get through that, you'll love the rest of the film. Segel is surprisingly talented in virtually every way. He's a better actor than you'd expect, he's a much better musician than he seems, and he wrote the film entirely by himself (according to the credits, at least), though it's possible that there were some ad-libs and improvisations from the other actors, all of whom are talented. It's also surprising to see Kristen Bell and Mila Kunis in this kind of screwball sex comedy, where both actresses had previously been on relatively wholesome television series prior to this. Also, most Americans didn't really know who Russell Brand was at this point.

It's a hilariously entertaining movie, but a bit thin in terms of general plot, but that's acceptable. It's not often that films like this have real, thought-provoking plots or deep, rounded, incredibly developed characters. It's not really the point of these kinds of movies. The point is to forget about whatever dumb stuff is going on in the real world, and just laugh your stressed-out ass off for an hour and a half. Check out the special features, too, the commentary is great, and the line-o-rama and gag reel are worth checking out.

I give the film three awkward full-frontal nude shots out of five, or three hilarious and surprising sex competitions out of five.