filmland / By Scott Renshaw

The Undead Comedy Hour

If you quease easily, you’re going to miss the funniest movie of the year

(Oct. 15, 2009) Previews

Opening Friday, Oct. 16, is the film adaptation of Where The Wild Things Are* , *based on Maurice Sendak’s beloved children’s book. Max journeys to the land of Wild Things, where he becomes their new ruler, but soon finds that relationships are harder then he thought. Expect to sit in a theater full of weepy adults. Rated PG for adventure action. 94m. At Broadway, Mill Creek and Fortuna.

Zombieland

GALLERY >

Jamie Foxx plays an upstanding family man whose wife and daughter are murdered in Law Abiding Citizen. When the killer receives a light sentence, Foxx’s character plots his revenge against both murderer and the lawyer who defended him. Rated R for violence, torture and language. 122m. At Broadway, Mill Creek, the Minor and Fortuna.

When Michael returns home from military school, he finds that his mother has fallen in love with another man in Stepfather. Is the new love interest hiding a dark secret? Rated PG-13 for violence and mature subject matter. 102m. At Broadway, Mill Creek and Fortuna.

Reviews

ZOMBIELAND: The flesh-eating undead are not, understandably, every movie-goer’s cup of tea. There are plenty of folks who will peruse their local movie listings, and — whether due to assumptions about quality or a queasy stomach — won’t bother going past the first six letters of the title Zombieland. And that’s a shame, because they’re going to miss what may turn out to be the funniest American comedy of 2009.

It’s sort of axiomatic at this point that theatrical audiences don’t tend to like the genre-mixing equivalent of somebody sticking chocolate in their peanut butter. In 2004, the hilarious horror-comedy mashup Shaun of the Dead managed to scrape together only $13 million at the box office during its U.S. run — or less than Soul Plane made that same year, if you want some really depressing perspective. We get the predictable, easily marketable nonsense we deserve. Heaven forbid smart filmmakers should be able to take gore and use it as seasoning for something where you’re going to laugh yourself stupid.

Zombieland starts with a familiar apocalyptic premise: Some strange virus has swept through the population, turning 99 percent of humans into relentless, flesh-hungry beasts. But a few survivors try to make their way, including a neurotic college student known as Columbus (Adventureland‘s Jesse Eisenberg) because that’s the hometown he’s trying to make his way back to. That geographic-name notion comes from Tallahassee (Woody Harrelson), the taciturn road warrior Columbus encounters, but who doesn’t think it’s wise to form attachments. And his philosophy makes sense when the next two people they encounter — sisters Wichita (Emma Stone) and Little Rock (Abigail Breslin) — promptly con them out of their car and their guns.

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