Zombieland: Double Tap

Zombies continue to terrify the living and have even grimly mutated in the ravenous Double Tap.

Rules and regulations still provide psychoshelter as predictable routines and collegial cheer augment feisty brainiac exhilarations.

The new zombies fall into 4 categories, none more deadly than the T-800, who can dodge bullets and employ martial arts, with more ferocity than the agile ninja.

While hunting insatiably en masse.

Or scouring the land strict and solo.

Zombieland's heroes have resiliently returned to face the undead once more, but youth has blossomed with age, and seeks less old school jejune internships.

And after argumentatively co-existing for combative years on end, group members set out in search of riled alternatives.

Like bears opposed to sleuthing.

Uplifting independence, unpasteurized brays.

If you've forgotten what took place in the original, fret not, for you will be reminded, about so much of what transpired in fact, exceeding recourse to novel genealogy.

And somehow, even though the internet has lost its edge, and most of the planet has been infected, news still travels remarkably fast, and stats still motivate restless recollections.

Without maps or GPS peeps travel instinctively far and wide, always aware of where they're going, often sticking to backwoods paths.

The next generation has yet to materialize but good relations remain free from censure, and even conjugally express their bold rewards, extant shenanigans of a secular age.

Non-perishables uphold and sustain commercial values, and nothing seems to have run out after all this perilous time.

Platonically speaking, healthy appetite flourishes unrestrained, the loyal spirit still courageously defending a laid-back immured intelligentsia.

Who peacefully refrain.

With warm impassioned jouissance.

There are some new developments and I won't deny that it's fun to watch, but Zombieland 2 still relies too heavily on source material, and makes way less sense so many years later.

I suppose a zombie horror-comedy sequel doesn't have to abound with plausibility.

But its focus on rules still rationally suggests otherwise.

A bit too much spirit.

Not enough strategy.

Effervescent clandestine innocence.

Free to fluster, exile, array.

Venom

Having harvested interstellar phenomena, and obtained coveted extraterrestrial booty, a courageous spacecraft swiftly descends towards Earth, and none of its crew survives.

The alien lifeforms discovered bond with various hosts, begrudgingly commandeering their bodies, with intent most disruptive and grievous.

Including, but not limited to, heading back to space to find their fellow mucus-like beings, in order to one day return, and devour humanity.

Whole.

Or from the inside out.

It depends.

Both conscientious reporter Eddie Brock (Tom Hardy) and technocratic phenom Carlton Drake (Riz Ahmed) eventually find themselves hosting representatives of the species, reps whose personality differences closely match those of Brock and Drake, the reps in fact searching for unique personalities, even if corresponding storylines can't withstand the symmetry.

Not Marvel's finest hour.

I thought perhaps the buzz was off, preferring to see it for myself before adding an opinion, but Venom misses 8.25 times out of 10, although there's something to be said for such a complete lack of refinement.

Something bad.

In a nutshell, the story's too blunt, too direct, too surface level.

It's not that you can't write a great story that's blunt and direct, many appealing stories are, as many have noted, Venom's lacking the aesthetic expertise that held those stories together though, everything's condensed into purposeful formulaic probabilities for instance, which unfortunately assumed they required nothing more.

It happens.

Ruben Fleisher's usually quite good, I don't know what happened here but I suspect his hands were too tied, his independent spirit was exorcized throughout production, and the result fell far short of his audience's expectations, since independent spirits often lack inspiration when conventionally constrained.

Took one for the team perhaps.

I suppose every Marvel film isn't destined to present a deep convincing narrative that cerebrally shocks and actively theorizes, but Venom does neither, and metaphorically secretes jingoistic protoplasm.

I suppose you need deadlines and a production schedule but when you're bound to make multimillions regardless, do you need to follow them/it so strictly?

You probably do.

I don't work in film.

It's kind of funny when Venom discusses his sociohistorical misfortunes with Eddie.

Too little too late though.

But something cool for round 2.

Gangster Squad

Gangster Squad worked for me.

It unreels like a tight graphic novel, short critical scenes packing poignant particles of plot into pyrotechnic proclivities, action-packed definitive melodrama fetchingly refurbishing the forensics.

Films such as these often fall apart if the writer(s) hasn't taken the extra time to ensure that her or his lines often seamlessly synthesize the kitschy and the poetic, and Will Beall's script creatively accomplishes this task, no doubt with assistance from Paul Lieberman's novel, commercially perspiring the artistic.

Gangster Squad blows Not Fade Away and The Last Stand away.

The ending, while jurisprudently brandishing a brash scarred face, wasn't as electric as that from Iron Man 2, and the Squad's supporting members would have benefitted from more screen time (throughout).

They do receive plenty of screen time (throughout) and there are a bunch of supporting characters but it's more like Star Trek: The Original Series than Voyager or The Next Generation, frequently focused on leading persons.

If Django Unchained attaches a commercial dimension to the artistic, I would argue that Gangster Squad adds an artistic dimension to the commercial.

Both are hyperviolent but I likely wouldn't have noticed Gangster Squad's if it wasn't for Django Unchained.

If Sgt. John O'Mara (Josh Brolin) and Mickey Cohen (Sean Penn) were both running backs, it's tough to imagine who would pick up more yards per game.

Methinks Mr. O'Mara has the edge.

Straight up the gut.

Love how Ruben Fleischer's career is progressing.

Half way through I was hoping for some Gary Busey. Shook my head when I remembered that it co-stars Nick Nolte.

30 Minutes or Less

Ruben Fleischer's 30 Minutes or Less is a well-crafted ridiculous summertime flick. Full of plenty of diversifying intertextuality, a father/son relationship to comedically rival that maintained between Braveheart's Longshanks and Prince Edward (enlivened by Fred Ward's machismo [the scene where he thinks it's funny that his son is trying to kill him is priceless]), a sharp examination of the concept of role-playing, witty banters exchanged between both pairs of struggling male duos, complete with different brands of particularized logistical clarifications concerning 'mature' and 'immature' approaches to life after 25, and a shoot out involving a flame thrower (brilliant), all wrapped up in an indirect salute to the puzzling benefits of living in a small town, it keeps the juvenile effervescence flowing abrasively and unapologetically, as it levitates towards its incandescent glass ceiling.

Anxiously highlighting the leveraged conditions of possibility, while playfully working within the master/slave dichotomy, the productive output of this individualized synthesis guarantees a destructive resolution.

Is this because Nick (Jesse Eisenberg) and Chet (Aziz Ansari) so eagerly and effectively became that which they had never considered they possibly would due to the imposition of tyrannical constraints, the force of the necessary malevolence which they are forced to distribute overcoming their previously established socially acclimatized psychologies due to the unforeseen consequences of concrete shock?

It's possible that this is what Fleischer means although the point is certainly up for debate. Other phenomenons such as sleeping with your best friend's sister and hiring trained killers are investigated as well.

Zombieland

Keep to the path and follow the rules, unless, of course, you're in search of a twinkie. Ruben Fleischer's Zombieland hilariously and absurdly chronicles the death-defying feats of four post-zombie take over survivors in the United States of America. When a hopeless situation arises there's always a serendipitous solution. If your neighbour suddenly turns into a flesh craving representative of the undead, remember the double tap. While fleeing the legions of zombies seeking to devour your post-pestilanic consciousness, make sure to pursue a little romance. And if in doubt, thoroughly express your rage but don't forget to fasten your seatbelt.

Legions of the undead is perhaps to strong a phrase insofar as Tallahassee (Woody Harrelson) and Columbus (Jesse Eisenberg) find themselves ditched and weaponless in a town whose resident zombies are curiously abstaining from their cannibalistic pursuits; but this is an absurd campy comedy whose internal chemistry supports such logical inconsistencies. Give 'em the finger, when a weapon's been used once, discard it; beware of clever fast-talking survivalists (Emma Stone as Wichita and Abigail Breslin as Little Rock); and it's never to late to check out Pacific Playland. If you're going to function as an individual, things are bound to be tough; and uniting your interests in order to obtain common objectives requires a cultivated degree of expedient trust (your chances of succeeding being ridiculously sublime) (in the beginning you have plenty of opportunity to proceed unnoticed). The showdown will eventually come and your success is dependent upon the reception of your cultural/musical/political/commercial/ . . . aesthetic. Just follow the lead of these four reluctant heroes and you're bound to receive critical acclaim.