Zombieland isn't exactly a movie that I feel inclined to wax philosophical about. I'm not going to write up a long winded review or anything. It doesn't deserve my beautiful prose. I'm just going to wing it, so here goes.

What do I love about zombie movies? It's that sense that the entire world has collapsed into despair, that the human race must start all over again. I love zombie movies because I have a fantasy of leaving the asinine trappings of modern life. Who wants to punch in at work when you can be out shooting zombies and hacking your way through a supermarket? With 90% of the population dead or a part of the undead, you're basically free to do whatever the fuck you want. See a nice shirt in that store? Just go grab it. Nobody's gonna stop you. What about that awesome hat? Go for it. If you need food, you only have to find it. You don't have to through the laborious process of working eighty hours in order to collect a paycheck, which you then have to deposit into your bank account, waiting another three days before it clears. Only then are you allowed to wait on a long line for a bus or in a stuffy subway station to get to the only Whole Foods near you. Then you get to put little boxes of food and drink into your shopping cart and push it all the way to the point of sale terminal where you get to swipe your debit card and punch in your PIN number, watching your bank account deplete slowly.

In a zombie-infested alternate reality, you just trek your way to the thousands of abandoned delis and grocery stores scattered in your city or state. Every day is a new one, fresh and free, unencumbered by a job or a mortgage. There are no lines to wait on. Nobody'll think less of you if you're unshaven with dirty long hair. Plus, there's the very obvious staple of a zombie movie: zombies. Tons of them. Lots of bloody guts and zombies vomiting their own guts out onto the pavement. Stuff like that. Massive amounts of zombie that flood the streets, filling the entire frame. That sort of thing is exciting and scary.

Zombieland doesn't deliver on anything that's fun about zombies. The plot is paper thin. It seemed to be more of a partial showcase for the list of 32 survival tips. Maybe somebody thought it would be fun to use cool diegetic kinematic type. It was some poor teenage kid's idea of how things would turn out if he America was zombified. It was an excuse to have a hilarious but short lived role for Bill Murray. It was a lot of poorly executed ideas mish-mashed together. And ultimately, it was anything but substantial.

The movie doesn't really engage the audience. As a popcorn flick, there's not nearly enough action. As a serious zombie thriller, it certainly isn't immersive enough. Zombieland is just a string of ideas that weren't really thought out. The beginning was interesting because he had all these rules that was presented to us in a very visually interesting manner. You feel that it has potential: Woody Harrelson as a cowboy? C'mon, that's golden: a modern cowboy kicking zombie ass. By the way, that little Western scene was no Ennio Morricone, I shot a better Western-wannabe in GTA IV, and that's not a brag. Anyway, the surivival rules, the cowboy as a partner, the hunt for Twinkies, it could've been a great story. But then the movie got all confused with a poorly developed romantic story arc and the silly trip to a theme park.

Zombieland's not lighthearted enough or clever enough like Shaun of the Dead, and it's not serious or grim enough like 28 Days Later or the new Dawn of the Dead. There's nothing compelling about Zombieland. Save your money for a copy of either of those aforementioned movies instead, you'll have a much funner time.

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As usual, Wistful Writer will not spoil movies he reflects on. There are no major spoilers here, only one very minor one.

"Observe and Report". As a security professional myself, I immediately recognized the phrase. It is a phrase used to summarize the some of the primary duties of a security officer. It is not the place of a security officer to chase down and apprehend suspects. Neither is it the place of a security officer to enforce the law. Ultimately, a security officer has no right to act in any capacity as a police officer or any other law enforcement officer. He is merely an employee charged with protecting a company's assets, including both persons and property, holding no special rights other than that of a private citizen.

Head of security Ronnie Barnhardt (Seth Rogen) is apparently oblivious to the true function of a security officer. Of course I assume just as much, otherwise it just wouldn't be very funny. In the interest of comedy, I would expect that from Ronnie. Just look at Paul Blart: Mall Cop. However, it seems like this movie was made solely for the purpose of heaping on piles and piles of derision upon the security officer's already thoroughly ridiculed occupation. Observe and Report doesn't really do much more than poke fun at "rent-a-cops", and it's not even all that funny.

As a comedy, this movie doesn't really deliver. Ronnie's insensitivity and excessively gung-ho attitude towards his duties as head of security at the Ridge Field mall has plenty of potential to  be funny. Unfortunately, writer and director Jody Hill doesn't play that angle to its fullest extent. The humor is cheap: it relies more on shock value than genuine humor. Hill invites us to laugh at Ronnie's idiocy, but it's more like when a mentally challenged child urinates in his pants: it could be funny if you put your compassion aside, but just not humorous otherwise.

So if it fails as a comedy, what does Observe and Report achieve?  Perhaps it is more dramatic than it is funny? It certainly doesn't do any good as a drama. It seems that Hill tries to build up dramatic scenes only in order to whisk the carpet away from underneath the audience with something starkly inappropriate. These dramatic moments are wasted on cheap laughs. Aside from a less than stellar story, character development is poor. Ronnie is insensitive, overzealous, and not very good at making sound judgments. As an anti-hero, you would expect him to have some redeeming qualities. But we barely see anything worth saving: only one scene seems to portray his redemptive quality of being protective towards Nell, the girl who serves him his daily cup of free coffee. Hill doesn't give us a reason to root for Ronnie. Instead, Ronnie is very much just a prick. He is portrayed as the epitome of a rent-a-cop: a fanatical security officer with a false sense of empowerment and a foolishly misplaced pride. Is it any surprise that he fails the pre-qualification examination for the police academy? I seriously doubt if anyone expected him to pass. I doubt even more that anyone felt bad for him.

We've established that the movie is neither humorous nor dramatic. I suspect that this is because Hill was unable to make up his mind. Instead of diving in headfirst into either genre, he attempts to add more depth to his movie with more serious and dramatic overtones. Near the end of the movie, Ronnie recites a serious monologue in an attempt to build up the drama of a disturbed mind that is highly focused on a single objective. This monologue was probably inspired by Martin Scorsese's Taxi Driver. The tone, choice of words, and delivery are similar to the overall tone of Taxi Driver. The scene comes complete with a reverse jump cut to repeat a particular line, in what I suppose would be a nod to one of Scorsese's masterpieces. It's sort of a cheap way to sidle up to a real legendary film.  At least Observe and Report isn't as long as Taxi Driver.

Finally, because the movie isn't an effective comedy, I cannot forgive the last twenty or so minutes of the film.  The scene where Ronnie's Travis Bickle-inspired speech segues into his last stand is ridiculous: nobody in their right mind would realistically believe that a police department would send  ten police officers to bring out one security officer who doesn't carry a sidearm.  If anything, a tactical unit would be sent to deal with this barricaded suspect.  Not only that, Ronnie's "last stand" didn't feel all that justified: what did he do wrong to deserve such a large police presence?  All he did was do something deserving his termination.  Lastly, the way that Ronnie deals with the naked man in the end is absolutely absurd and entirely outside the realm of even the most loosely held of realities.

I may be more biased towards defending the image of security professionals. I am the type to care too much, but by no means am I overzealous. I have a clear and humble idea of what it means to be a security officer. So believe me when I say that I am not being defensive when I say that Observe and Report is not really worth watching. Jody Hill made it clear that he is not a comedic genius. Nor is he a master of crafting dramatic story arcs. If you like the type of humor that requires you to look down your nose at people and let loose a derisive scoff, this movie might have a chance at satisfying you. Otherwise, I'd recommend watching Paul Blart: Mall Cop or Taxi Driver if you don't want to waste an hour and a half of your life that you'll never get back.

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Okay, so I just finished watching Magnolia. I have to be honest. It was a humongous waste of my time. And it was no small chunk of time either: it clocked in at a very hefty three hours.

The main thing that's wrong with the film is its flimsy premise. I was tricked with a promise of interrelated events woven artfully into a mosaic. Instead, I got loosely related characters that were barely connected. The connections between the various stories and characters are, for all intents and purposes, whimsical. There was an incredibly sore lack of profundity in the relationships between the stories.  I kept sitting out the set pieces, hoping that the end would bring some mind blowing connection between all the characters, an ending that neatly ties together all the loose ends.

I don't have a formal education in film or storytelling. But I do know that especially with film you should be concise, focused, and show a strong direction in the story. If you can take out one aspect, one part of the story, one character, and still have a strong story, then that part needs to be cut out. In Magnolia, Stanley the quiz whiz kid barely had anything to do with the movie: if you took him out of it, the movie could still stand on its own.

Other connections that are witnessed in the film are just as weak. All you have to look at is this diagram on Wikipedia.  It's laughable how these characters are related to each other.  It's almost random.  When filmmaker Paul Thomas Anderson had the opportunity to explore and create whatever he wanted, he grabbed the chance.

And therein lies the problem.  Anderson made a film based on his whimsy.  As the Wikipedia says, "New Line Cinema...told Anderson that he could do whatever he wanted and the filmmaker realized that, 'I was in a position I will never ever be in again.''  He had the chance to draw up an impressive cast list, the freedom to do whatever the hell he wanted.  He got a free pass.  It's like when someone gets immunity on a game show and fucks around on the next contest because he knows he's free from impunity.

When I was writing my first screenplay, I thought of putting in little connections based on pieces of things I was in love with at the time.  I had just recently discovered Johnny Cash and really enjoyed the song, "Down the Street to 301".  Needless to say, I wrote into my screenplay that Jana lived in apartment 301.  I also had a little collection of short stories that I loved.  I wanted to find ways to put them into my screenplay.  There was this story I had, a dialogue where a twenty year old guy was being hit on by a girl that would be best described as jail bait.  I fit that into a bus ride just because I wanted it in my screenplay.

I wouldn't be surprised if something similar is what happened to Anderson.  In fact, it fits right into his M.O.  He outright ripped some lyric he loved ("Now that I've met you/Would you object to/Never seeing each other again"), taken from the music he was listening to at the time.  He even had the damned title before he even started the screenplay.  It's like he worked backwards.  He had random pieces of creativity that he fell in love with: song lyrics, music, little stories, and really bad numerological references.  Then he wrote a screenplay that used all these pieces.

The result?  A world that makes little sense, connections that are weak, and an extensively painful movie that far from rewards the audience for sitting through the entire three hours.  The whole story was forced.  There was nothing natural about the world crafted by the movie.  There was no serendipity, no profound connection of seemingly random people.  A story here, a story there, and a forced connection was written in order to tie it together.  The entire film lacked direction and had no real dramatic arc in a way that makes sense.  It stank of the touch of an overenthusiastic amateur screenwriter who lacked the finesse of a seasoned story teller.

I liken Magnolia to modern abstract art.  It lacks structure, and one must concentrate solely on the content that isn't even decently presented.  I appreciate films that make you think, but what I don't appreciate are films that make you search for a meaning.  I feel that a good film is one that is the impetus for interesting conversation about philosophy, life, and truth.  If you have to discuss the multitude of interpretations or attempt to find the meaning of a film, then I must opine that it cannot be called a "good" film.

Magnolia is what happens when you let someone run amuck with free reign and a blank check.  It's like a kid who gets to spend all day with a Lego set.  By the end of the day, he will have created from red and blue bricks a twenty foot robot with nukes for legs, water cannons for eyes, eleven machine guns for arms, and a laser sword across its chest.  Oh yeah, and he can transform into a penguin, because penguins are cool and can swim.  In other words, a veritable monstrosity that makes no sense.

It upsets me that there are plenty of talented screenwriters who may never see the day that their vision is created and put up on the silver screen.  Instead, utter trash like Magnolia is given critical acclaim.  I suspect that the more abstract or unintelligible a film is, the more acclaim it will garner.  After all, if you don't get it, you must be an idiot. And nobody wants to be known as an idiot.

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Warning: Spoilers ahead. Don't worry, the movie's not worth much anyway.

Jumper, a recent addition to the science-fiction genre, places our favorite Star Wars prequel trilogy anti-hero Hayden Christensen front and center as a teleporting young man chased by those who find his gift to be an abomination. The concept is pretty awesome: being able to teleport anywhere you want will probably invoke fantasies of girls' locker rooms for a lot of the geeks watching, and fantasies of taking anything you want for those who are criminally inclined. Okay, we'd all probably do both those things.

But that's where the coolness ends. The concept was good on paper and probably epically awesome in the writer's mind. But they really dropped the ball with the execution, the same way they messed up The Covenant. There's everything necessary here to create a great story: a cool supernatural ability, an interesting tool of the trade, conflict of interest via the bloodline, and a love story. Star Wars pulled it off with great gusto. A New Hope set the stage and created the mythology of the world we were set in. The Empire Strike Back built up the romance. And Return of the Jedi resolved the bloodline story. How did Jumper fare?

What Jumper did instead was spread itself too thin. The movie is incredibly shallow. The plotline on IMDb suggests something far more epic than is evident in the movie. What do we see in the movie? We see a late blooming teleporting kid who discovers his power when his life is in danger. He goes on to rob a bank and develops a penchant for fancy apartments in the high-rise buildings of Manhattan. Living a posh lifestyle, he goes off to lunch in Europe and surfs in Japan, ending his day with a setting sun in Egypt. One day, he tries to pick up a woman in London. We don't see whether or not he really succeeds, but he does end up going back to his flat in New York City accompanied only by the umbrella that he brought along. A mysterious black man with white hair is shockingly occupying the apartment upon his return. He introduces himself as Roland (did anyone else conjure up the scene where Sam Jackson says, "My name is Pitt, and yo' ass ain't talkin' your way out of this" here?). After a failed attempt to build tension, Roland the bad ass in a mandarin collar shirt decides to strike down upon Mr. Rice with great vengeance and furious anger.

This is the first time we are exposed to the tools of the Paladin's trade. They are visually interesting and its design is intriguing. They are to Jumper what the lightsaber is to Star Wars. It would make a good story to see the history behind this tool: what did Paladin's use before they had high-powered launchable tasers.

After the fight, we are taken back to Michigan where David Rice seeks his long lost love. With money in his pocket and the ability to take her anywhere, David goes to the bar where Millie works now. He presumes to whisk her away to Rome where things go awry. The depth of the romance was disappointing though. Are you telling me that Millie would get so absurdly horny enough to take off her shirt after mere seconds of kissing? Okay, fine, maybe Millie is easy. Even so, the attraction and interaction between the two simply wasn't believable. I'll have to blame that on bad writing.

We're now in Rome, where the security officer at the Colosseum provides the best part of the movie. When David attempts to gain access to the Colosseum, the officer responds, "No, I'm sorry. It is impossible." I don't know what it was that was so funny in this interaction, but I'm sure that the hilarity of it must've been experienced first hand by a writer who visited Italy and heard such a funny mistranslation. David continues to hide his ability from Millie and gains access in order to give her a very special tour. We're now introduced to another jumper, Griffin, who happens to be taking a leak. Soon enough, some Paladins emerge ominously from the dark archway. A fight ensues, and Griffin defeats the Paladins.

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