CasanovaZelos at the Movies #10

I was kind of in a rush with these two reviews. I promise to do a better job editing next week. For two reasons, one of them should be obvious in the fact of how you found this article.

My local movie theater started its film classes up again, this time with great directors as its subjects. Along with this, I started a film club at my school, so I should be more active with my movie watching over the next few weeks.

Hail the Conquering Hero (1944)

Directed by Preston Sturges

This was the choice for the first great director. He’s also a man almost none of you have ever heard of. Now, he isn’t just some random, obscure choice to try to appear hardcore or anything. Preston Sturges, strangely enough, made great movies during WWII. Just during WWII. He kind of faded away after that. His films are marked by witty dialogue and outlandish situations that get worse as they go on. He’s incredibly obscure nowadays, though his film Sullivan’s Travels is kind of well known, placing at #61 in AFI’s most recent list of top films. He’s more of a great writer than director, but he directs everything he writes.

Story:

Outlandish stories is what he does best. A man keeps to himself on a marine base after being discharged for having a sickness. While there, a group of marines convinces him to go back home, and by convinces, I mean forces him into it. Through an odd series of events, he is seen as a war hero from his town, and everyone in town quickly falls for him, to the point of wanting to elect him mayor. No matter how hard he tries to get away from it, everything continually gets worse from there. An unbelievably witty story.

1/1

Story Flow/Length:

It’s a little bit over an hour and a half, which isn’t a problem. The story is easy to follow, as should be expected from a writer of Sturges caliber.

2/2

Characters:

This is another case where the characters aren’t anything special. They don’t do anything that will make you remember them, but they also don’t do anything to make you dislike them. They all have their own little quirks and whatnot, but none of the characters are special enough that you will want to remember them.

.5/1

Acting:

Another thing that doesn’t exactly stand out. There isn’t any bad acting in this film, but none of the performances are all that memorable, either.

.7/1

Atmosphere:

It never does anything to interrupt its atmosphere. The dialogue does a great job of setting up a hilarious mood. Not really anything special, but this isn’t a category you really have to do anything special in.

1/1

Technical:

Another movie that is simple enough that it doesn’t really have anything to screw up.

1/1

Dialogue:

This is where Sturges’s greatness comes from. Sturges is easily amongst the greatest writers of all time, because his skill with dialogue is phenomenal. If an event happens in the story, it’s because of little, simple, common phrases that just set off a response. Everything that happens in the movie is either caused by anger at someone’s response or a misunderstanding. It’s inexplicable, overwhelming, and, in the end, unbelievably funny. Sturges is a comedic genius. Honestly, if you’re a fan of dialogue based comedy, you should really consider watching Sturges’s movies. All of them from his main years are brilliant. I’ve only seen two of his movies so far, and they’re apparently considered two of his lesser ones of this time period, yet they still blew my mind.

1/1

Star Rating: *** and a half/****

Entertainment Value:

Well, it is a funny film. It’s a master of comedy. However, I’m not going to say it’s the most entertaining film I’ve ever seen. It’s funny, but not funny to the point that you can’t stop laughing. Just a simple laugh here and there. It’s definitely a fun film to watch, but not amazing or anything.

1.3/2

Final Score: 8.5/10

Zombieland (2009)

Directed by Ruben Fleischer

Story:

Well, it’s a simply premise. A young man tries to live in a world full of zombies. While on his struggle to survive, he meets a crazy man and two thieving sisters. Not really a complex story or anything too special. But, there are so many moments where I can’t help but ask “Why?” Most of this stems from the two girls. Why would you rob and abandon who could quite possibly be the only other living humans? Why would you go to an amusement park, turn on all the lights, go on a ride with a long ride time that will trap you on it, and then be surprised when zombies attack you? I refuse to believe someone could survive that long and then do something that stupid. And there’s so much more. Like I mentioned, they rob the two men. How do they do this? Oh, they act like the younger sister is infected and they get the gun crazy guy to kill her, only to have the older one to grab the gun acting like she’ll do it. Hello, you just had a total stranger point a shotgun in the face of your sister. For all she knew, the guy could’ve just pulled the trigger and gotten it over with. And then her whole character is about not trusting people. She’ll trust someone to point a gun in her sister’s face and not pull the trigger after being told to, yet she can’t trust the last two people on Earth enough to travel together for survival. I just don’t get it. There’s still so much left that I could complain about, but I think I’ve said enough. It’s so obvious that half the things that happen happen just because they came up with a cool idea for a visual effect and they needed an excuse to use it. At least I can say it’s all uphill from here.

0/1

Story Flow/Length:

This is one of the reasons that I make such a big deal out of flow. Even if the story itself is bad, as long as it’s presented well, it is bearable. Zombieland was presented incredibly well. While what’s going on doesn’t make much sense half the time, you can at least follow along with it. It also keeps itself around an hour and a half, which is always good.

2/2

Characters:

Two great characters and two infuriatingly stupid ones. But, hey, when they’re not doing quite possibly the most idiotic things to do in their situation, the two girls are likable. Tallahassee is awesome, and Colombus is an interesting character as far as this type of movie goes. They all complement each other greatly, and they make a pretty interesting cast.

.8/1

Acting:

Really, all four of the actors were perfect for their roles. They all perfectly represent the type of characters they are, and they do a good job.

1/1

Atmosphere:

For a zombie movie, there seems to be quite a bit of stretches that inexplicably have very little zombies. I’m just going to go ahead and assume that this was intentional, and maybe they truly did manage to mostly avoid the millions of zombies roaming America. That’d explain how the girls managed to survive for so long, at least.

1/1

Technical:

The technical side of this movie is unbelievable. The slow motion scenes near the beginning are simply astounding. It is definitely a technically pleasing film. It’s easily the strongest point of the movie. There’s just so much in the movie that’s pleasing on the eyes.

1/1

Dialogue:

It has some strong, witty dialogue. This is a comedy movie, and most of it’s derived from the dialogue. Like I said, the characters and actors just flow really well together, and this is in part because of the dialogue. However, there still seems to be quite a bit of pop culture references in this movie. Almost too many.

.8/1

Star Rating: *** and a half/****

Entertainment value:

Zombieland stays fun throughout. It’s both one of the best comedies and best horrors in recent years. It does a great job of going one step farther than it needed to as far as characters and dialogue were concerned. Unfortunately, a lot of the problems with the story are even apparent without having to think about them, so that detracts a bit from the movie as far as entertainment goes. But, still, it is a wildly entertaining movie that you should definitely go see if you haven’t already.

1.6/2

Final Score: 8.2/10