Zombieland - a lesson for nerds everywhere

Zombieland is a spectacularly funny film. Whether you're an old hand at zombie genre movies or a newbie looking for a giggle, it's for you. The film is mostly a comedy with a couple of jumpy bits chucked in to remind you that it's a zombie film. Over 90 minutes we follow the nerdy and introverted 'Columbus' (I don't remember if the main character's real name is ever revealed), his chance meeting with the lunatic zombie-killing hick 'Tallahassee' (Woody Harelson) and their adventure across America with two sisters trying to get to a funfair in California - the sisters are also known only by the places they're trying to get to. Columbus has a series of rules for surviving the zombie apocalypse - which is pretty funny in itself. Throughout the film the rules appear on screen as he and Tallahassee fight their way unscathed past hordes of zombies. Nice.

That's just one of many nice touches in Zombieland, touches that include some wonderfully detailed sets and quality black humour moments like a pair of arms stuck to a steering wheel. The best comedy bit is the appearance of Bill Murray in the middle; I knew that was coming, but it was far funnier than I had imagined. To be honest I was in my element in the opening montage, in which slow-mo zombies chase people around in stunt-man's heaven while 'For Whom the Bell TOlls' by Metallica plays. There was no way I wasn't going to enjoy myself after that.

So what of the plot? I really don't get on with films without plots. Although on the surface the film is simply a series of blackly comic set-pieces, there is in fact a very simple and enjoyable story going on. It's a story about a lonely nerdy guy - Columbus - and his coming of age via some extreme violence, finding a girl he kind of likes and - of course - surviving a zombie apocalypse. It delivers an important message to the nerds of the world; keep on wearing your seatbelt and doing your cardio exercises, cos when the zombie apocalypse comes and all the other guys in the world have been eaten, the chicks will have to make time with you then.

Overall - it's a great comedy with a lot of heart. Although it's not quite as good as 'Shaun of the Dead' (what is though?), it's certainly going to find itself high in my movie of the year chart.

Deliverance - the duelling banjos

Although Deliverance may be a quality thriller about racism and middle class fear in modern America, it also has once of the great (and much-parodied) all-time scenes. In this scene the city dwellers arrive in a small redneck village trying to buy travel out into the countryside. They look on in dismay at the 'genetic deficiencies' of the locals, and then this happens:



It's a scene that embodies the central point of the movie, that although the middle class white collar city dwellers may think themselves a cut above these yokels; they actually don't have a clue about these people or their lives. In fact their opinions of and fears about them are nothing more than racism.

And it's some wicked cool music too.

Rosemary's Baby - a classic thriller

One of the great things about cinema is that there's such an extensive back-catalogue of films you can never say you've seen it all. There's always something new to discover, always a new 'classic' that you've never previously heard of or considered worth investing time in. So it was with 'Rosemary's Baby', recommended to me by a computer algorithm on the Amazon website a number of times, I finally bothered to read the synopsis and decided that this was a film I had to see.

As a cult 1960s classic about devil worship in New York City, it sounds like the sort of film that should be firmly placed in the cannon of the horror genre. Perhaps it is, but it's a film that had never been on my radar until just recently; I wonder if there is a cult of horror fans out there who like to hoard all these classics to themselves and never tell other people about them for fear of making them mainstream. They shouldn't worry, I don't think this is a film that would ever be able to survive for too long in mainstream consumption - it's far too subtle and psychedelic for that.

The plot revolves around a woman - Rosemary, played by Mia Farrow - her pregnancy and her increasing paranoia that a satanic cult exists in her block of flats and is planning to steal and kill her child. This is a story that works on number of levels. Firstly there is Rosemary's fear of losing her baby - a terrifying concept for pregnant couples to entertain. Secondly there is Rosemary's fear that those around her are out to get her. From her neighbours to her doctor and her husband, is her fear born out of delusion or is it real? Thirdly there is the fear of going mad. How do you prove that something you know to be real - but sounds absurd - is truth rather than fiction? How do you convince people you are not mad. Lastly there is the fear of the unknown. This is first time she has been pregnant, she has no idea what it is meant to feel like. When her neighbour gives her a special 'tonic' drink which gives her permanent stomach cramps, who is she to disagree with the assertion that this is perfectly normal?

It's this primal fear that drives the film along. There is one early scene in which our main character hallucinates (or does she?) being raped by a demonic creature, but aside from that all the tension comes from the awkwardness that Rosemary's neighbours and doctors show towards her. What are they hiding? Why are they hiding it? Are they really witches? Is Rosemary going mad? Will anyone believe her?

The ending is very satisfying and I am not going to give it away here. It certainly made the rest of the film worthwhile. If anyone has any cult movie recommendations that may have passed the mainstream by let me know - I'm going to be seeking more out in the near future.

Import / Export

Once again I got sent a film that somehow got put on my LoveFilm list without me remembering. As with all of these things they generally come from me listening to Mark Kermode on the radio and deciding to check out whatever strange arthouse weirdness he has decided is the best film of the week. By the time these films actually get sent to me I have no idea what they are about again, so looking it up on imdb revealed to me that this was a tale of two people, one going east and one going west, and their lives. Hmmm.

With this extraordinarily worthy-sounding synopsis lodged in my brain I sat down to Import/Export's slightly-more-than 2 hours. Whenever I watch an arty film I'm always slightly aware that I'm going to get something different to the norm, but I wasn't quite expecting what this film offered up. Within 20 minutes of the start there are some pretty explicit sex scenes. I don't just mean explicit, I mean explicit. The lead 'going west' character - a Ukrainian girl - goes and works in an online sex parlour and has to interact with some seriously nasty sounding characters over the internet. Later in the film the 'going east' character - an Austrian who is a jobless arsehole - hires a prostitute when he arrives in Ukraine; she looks well underage. The scene where his father gets her to curse herself in German is very disturbing and - once again - explicit.

So was there any point to all this? Well I recon it's all about the different ways that people act and react towards people from different social strata and different places in the world. Reading around a little on the imdb of other people's reactions to the film, there is a feeling that it's trying to highlight the way the people from Eastern Europe might sometimes be treated as second class citizens in the western world. I have sympathy for that point of view, since the two main characters are an Austrian man and a Ukrainian woman. He is a layabout who mistreats his girlfriend, she is a trained nurse. He travels east and with his little money can get what he wants; she travels west and can only get work as a cleaner in an old-people's home.

I am pleased I saw the film, as the major point it's making is a valid one, and one that I should probably give more time to thinking about. I'm not necessarily going to recommend it to everyone though, as it's very heavy and depressing (every scene in the old people's home is heart-wrenching). Also, if you're easily offended by really explicit sex scenes you'll probably want to give it a miss.