Zombieland - 2009

With the boys back home pushing the hype on this one pretty hard, it was kind of unavoidable that I see it. So I went with a friend, shut off the plot-shredding critical side of the brain, and watched all 88 minutes of it. And Loved it. Later, through a text-versation with my friend BK, I cultivated my opinion. He typed, and I quote: "Name one better zombie movie." I thought of the godfather, the rule-setter, Romero's Night of the Living Dead (Thank you Mr. Romero). Then mentioned that I thought Boyle's 28 Days Later modernized the idea, best. Lastly, Shaun of the Dead champeened the "zom-edy" sub-genre and opened the gate for the Apatow Dynasty to throw in it's wisdom. I also derived my personal criteria of the zombie flick: #1.) It must have some sort of social commentary, preferrably with the whole of our society and their current, uhm. . . "flaws." And so, I saw the on-screen "rules" as a reflection of the currently popular coffeetable-esque writing fad of "zombie survival," literally readable on screen of course to catalize the connection. Then came this little queery: "If a 12-year-old not knowing who Bill Murray, and eventually Ghandi are, irritates me indefinitely, does that mean I'm getting old? Or does it justify the observation that kids these days seem to know more about how to text from their pockets and check itunes updates, than good ol' modern world history? Carl Grutt zombie-flick criteria #2.) They should eventually touch on the mental struggle of loosing a loved one to personal survival. Each character here did briefly, so gold star. I also appreciated how this one touched on our soft-programmed American want for excess. Honestly, the power would proabably be out in a couple of weeks, but let's skip over that and show how frustrating it is to not have our fave snack foods. On that, Bob and another friend (thanks Koshack!) reminded me of the main point of the new zombie era: Rackin up gore points! For sure, that's the focus of this one. Totally watchable fun, well worth the ticket to ride. I boosted it to an A- because of Bill Murray. He's like an extra credit report, always a good idea. Yes Yes, go see it guys.