World War Z

I took my game studio to see World War Z this week, and we found it it be a solid flick. The pacing is pretty spot on, the tension doesn't let up, there are multiple instances of clever early set-up of mechanics that will matter later in the film, and for the most part, they avoid overly telegraphing events in the film.

I really enjoyed the fleshed-out family relationship Brad Pitt has with his wife and two daughters (Mireille Enos, Sterling Jerins, and Abigail Hargrove). There is some great stuff there creating a broader avenue for acting, higher stakes and tension in the film, and makes the film matter more at a cost and consequence level.

On the one hand, I'm hopeful this adds to the appeal of the film for those of us that have matured on genre and non-genre films, and now have kids of our own. On the other hand, I worry the familial stuff won't resonate with the stereotypical "unmarried male with no kids" demographic -- "I liked the film, but that family stuff really got in the way of the action."

The other reason the film resonated so well with me is I think expectations for the film were justifiably low.

Let's face it -- the project had a troubled history. Some of that was rights issues, and some of that is due to re-writes and re-shoots to an already-finished, supposed-to-be-holiday 2012 tentpole movie, that was so bad it needed to be moved into summer of the following year. That creates justifiable concern around the quality of a movie -- last-minute re-shoots and moving to another distribution window (or direct-to-DVD) rarely bodes well for a project.

Thankfully, World War Z survives all of that, and is a better film because of it.

Another challenge for a film like this is zombies certainly aren't passé, and since they're part of the cultural conscious, it can be tough to do something interesting with them. Without giving things away, there's a good advancement of the 28 Days / Later "fast zombie" contributions to the mythos that are well-executed, and really add to the tension and terror in the movie. And it holds onto the "shambling zombie" memes in a clever way.

Now, to be frank, in some ways, expectations for the film were unjustifiably low. A lot of that is due to a weird societal "Brad Pitt hate" -- which is stupid. Hate him because he looks amazing? Go deal with your insecurities and sense of entitlement ("he looks handsome and I don't so I hate him") elsewhere.

I was talking to a guy who "hates" Brad Pitt, and I asked him if he liked him in any of his films. He told me that while he hates him, he found him "amazing" in Inglourious Basterds, Snatch, Fight Club, Twelve Monkeys, and Se7en. That's a long list of likes for an actor this guy hates. (Personally, I find him a pretty inspiring actor for me to emulate.)

It's important to understand the movie is far different from the Max Brooks's World War Z book -- And that's fine.

I'm one of those "I want different expressions of property in different mediums" -- So as long as a treatment doesn't do things that violate core pillars of the franchise -- so what?

Sure, I have minor quibbles with the film. I'm a bit familiar with CDC and WHO practices, and even if you're not, there are some obvious efficiencies taken in the story, with some obvious artificial conveniences. The pacing is compelling enough, though, that many of these inefficiencies are only noticeable in hindsight -- a pretty good sign for a story.

Overall, World War Z (the movie) holds onto core tenets of the book, gives viewers a good (and accessible) genre-treatment, tremendously balances the expected and additional tropes around zombies, and wraps it all in a well-acted, well-executed package.

This Is The End

Yes, I saw This is The End. Yes, I really liked it. It's hilarious, so wrong, has nuggets of awesome, and is overall entertaining.

I judge movies like this by how long friends and stand in a parking lot laughing and recounting stuff in the movie. We were there for a while.

This is another of those tough movies to talk about without giving something away, but suffice it to say, it's a bunch of actors playing versions of themselves, in a humorous, very graphic, post-apocalyptic comedy horror movie. If you don't know a lot of the reveals, I recommend seeing the film without even looking at the IMDb -- Because the cast list itself will give away key gags in the flick.

"Main" characters are James Franco, Jonah Hill, Seth Rogen, Jay Baruchel, Danny McBride, and Craig Robinson, but there's a potpourri of actors and actresses playing skews of themselves, to hilarious effect. I'm impressed actors can be so confident to put portrayals of themselves like this out there, because without the perceptual armor of a character out there, it feels like they're taking more of a risk with their identity.

Sounds vague and weird, and you have to see the film to get it. Especially scenes like Michael Cera's.

This is The End is a crass, over-the-line flick. And not "regular" over-the-line, but pole-vault over the line, do a little bit of naked tea-bagging, then streak back and forth over the line while laughing at things you shouldn't laugh at.

("Shouldn't" being totally subjective.)

The film's taken some flack for being "sacrilegious". And it's not easy to say it is or it isn't. Yep, there's some stuff here I could totally see people justified as saying, "You really shouldn't play with that".

On the other hand, there's some "good theology" here, and it's not buried that deep. Again, I can't say too much without giving things away, but it does some interesting stuff dealing with right versus wrong, superficial relationships, the true measure of the heart, and other stuff.

If you can't handle movies poking fun at things you're deeply, spiritually attached to, I don't recommend it. But if you're more wired along the lines of an ongoing challenge of the stuff you believe in, This is The End might be an unexpected foil for that.

Daybreakers

I caught a matinee of Daybreakers yesterday at the Alamo Drafthouse Village (avoid the brunch scones), and find it a good, worthwhile film.

It's a newish take on vampire lore (not unique to the film, but not as tired as a lot of genre conceits), stylish and at times gritty, and it did a good job of sucking me in (ahem).

The basic premise is that it's the future, vampires are the dominant population, and humans are facing extinction as they're farmed or hunted for blood. But blood's running out, and unless a substitute is found, vampires face their own extinction as they devolve into brainless animals.

Vampire fandom aside, I'd watch Ethan Hawke or Willem Dafoe just sit and drink coffee, so I was likely to enjoy this movie just because of them. The hard-working Claudia Karvan makes a great muted romantic foil, and I appreciate that she's strong and sexy without being overbearing or slutty (both in-character and in the film).

Despite my enjoying the film, I do have to say it is amazingly uneven -- on pretty much every front (other than the acting, with the possible exception of Sam Neill, who plays up the whole "evil corporate entity"" role way too stereotypically).

By "uneven", I mean from the pacing to the focus on the mythos to the cinematography to the dialog.

Pacing ranged from staid and thoughtful to frantic and music video-like. The film didn't feel like it knew what to do with the mythos -- here was this great take on a modern vampire utopia, complete with the mundane versions of non-vampire living (commuting, getting coffee, etc.), that was at first set up and explored, and then thrown out to focus on serial happenings.

Ironically, this caused the film to lose a bit of its humanity, as it bulleted through plot points, at the expense of the relationships and exploring the societal impacts of this whole system.

The shooting is great, though there are some marquee moments in the film I found jarring, because you can almost see someone working hard to pose the actors and setup the shot, for the sake of it looking "bad-ass", at the expense of authenticity (and frankly, I almost laughed out load when I saw them).

At the same time, there are some great nods to traditional vampire tropes (staking, etc.) that are put in in surprising, fun, and non-obtrusive ways.

Overall, a worthwhile flick, at times unnecessarily gratuitous, but, overall, a good movie to add to your queue.

Zombieland

So, every once in a while, I watch a move, read a book, play a game, or shoot a film that makes me very, very happy.

Zombieland did that to me tonight.

In the game space, we talk about "Triple-A" games, where the sum total of the experience is stellar, even if there are minor miss-steps in some of components (graphics, gameplay, design, hook, basics, etc.). And a really amazing AAA game wouldn't have any miss-steps.

Zombieland is amazing triple-A.

I don't want to spoil the movie, but there are zombies. Lots of them. Filling the land. Creating a zombie land.

And the various trailers do a good job of showing the film for what it is -- a survival horror comedy film.

But not flick, which is why I'm glad it falls outside of the summer throwaway popcorn diversions, but before the slasher shocktaculars of this Halloween.

And not the stuff underneath that multi-genre classification.

Firing on all cylinders, Zombieland is fun, funny, horrific, heartfelt, and polished -- not an easy combo, by any stretch -- and it doesn't fall into the tropes that horror films can fall into (cartoonish titillation, overly cheap startles, etc.).

From the overall gimmick to the VO narrative to the text special effects, the movie's a treat.

The one thing that I thought was a miss-step -- overdone gruesomeness in the first act of the film -- is actually a factor of production and narrative. First, gory, detailed effects are expensive -- use them early to get the affect you want, then cheat them later. Second (and more importantly), even though this is a comedy survival horror film, it's a survival horror film. The audience needs to get that this situation is bad, and not "pristine - get - shot - by - stormtroopers - with - lasers" bad. It's messy, gory, scary bad. Done and done.

OK. No more. See the film. If you're of age. And not overly squeamish.