Zombieland. one of my coworkers has been telling me to see this. i thought i'd feel more of a connection between this and shaun of the dead with comedic takes on the zombie apocalypse, but this definitely has its own vibe. however, over the years, enough people have talked it up that i knew just about everything noteworthy about it and there were barely any surprises. jesse eisenberg remains a good actor that never veers too far from a standard (even in real life, in my experience). but woody harrelson was pretty funny in this. i enjoyed it.

Drive. i saw this last week and it immediately jumped to the top of my list for the year, maybe even #1. it's based on the james sallis novel from a few years ago. ryan gosling plays a getaway driver. he gets involved with a criminal job. it doesn't go well. the people behind it go after him. it's intense, violent, captivating, etc. i thought it was clearly inspired by michael mann movies like manhunter and heat. also, albert brooks plays a character unlike any other he's ever done.

Isn't Drive a remake of the Walter Hill/Ryan O'Neal flick?

Watching Falling Down. Underrated. Probably my favorite Schumacher film next to Tigerland. Although, Flatliners always has a soft spot in my heart.

i think that's the driver. if it's what i think it is, there are similar stylistic elements in drive, but it's a different story.

this looks really good. how'd you see it?

a friend of a friend runs a lot of advance screenings around town and i've been lucky enough to be invited to a handful of them.

and, yes, it is really good. there were a few scenes where the audience cheered. and another two scenes were so violent that the girl sitting next to me shrieked. i don't hear that a lot at the movies anymore. but this one really got to some people.

It is The Driver, but from the previews looks like the exact same movie.

Amber Heard

watched Win Win the other day. It was good, reminded me of Little Miss Sunshine a bit.

Has anyone seen Super?

I watched about half of it but fell asleep towards the end. I'd still like to see what happened.

we liked it a lot

I loved it--though I'm a sucker for anything Ellen Page. But I enjoy the combination of Robert Rodriguez-style hyper-violence with the pseudo-innocence Page brings to her roles (which, actually gets turned on its head in a rather fabulous fashion here).

I think Ellen Page is what's keeping me from seeing this, for some reason.

also, I've been thinking recently about having a Kevin Corrigan film festival, but the dude is in fucking everything, so it'll take about 2 months to pare it down to a manageable amount.

if there is ever a feature film story of the Flaming Lips, he MUST play Wayne

I wouldn't mind a True Romance, The Departed, Pineapple Express triple feature...with Scotland, PA and Big Fan on the side screen

What, no Superbad?

ideally, it'd be some of the stuff I haven't seen, since there's a shitload of it. I'd be willing to include his scenes from Goodfellas, since there's only like 2 of them, and I'd probably have to include the episode of Freaks & Geeks where he's selling fake IDs to the kids.

shit, I don't remember him at all in Exorcist III.

don't forget about the entire series run of grounded for life

I just watched Mission Impossible III last night for the first time. My wife and I both really liked it. I hated the second one so I had ignored this one initially. The I found out/realized that JJ Abrams directed it, and with a new one coming out directed by Brad Bird (The Incredibles, Iron Giant, Ratatoille - this is his first live action, I think) I decided I had to finally see it.

Now instead of hoping Brad Bird can make this crappy franchise worthwhile (how I felt when I first found out he was directing MI4), I'm hoping he can pull off a worthy follow-up.

Watched The Music Room (Jalsaghar) last night. What a stark, engaging film. Fantastic music performances, to boot:

This was decent. I think it makes a nice little 1, 2 punch with SLC Punk. This is the fictional film btw, based on the novel. There is also a doc out there about the Taqwacore music scene as well.

Haven't seen this in a few years, but man, its so good. Rowlands is incredible.

Moneyball. i did not expect a lot from this because i kept thinking, "how are they going to adapt the book into a movie?" now, i should mention that i've read the book, subscribe to many of the ideas in it and consider myself a gigantic baseball fan. i was also familiar with a lot of the behind-the-scenes news - numerous directors attached, a screenplay that switched hands repeatedly, casting changes, etc. the main problem is that the filmmakers are trying to make some niche subject matter appeal to wide audiences. and they run into similar issues as anyone would when adapting specialized source material for the masses - not close enough for the nerds, not broad enough for everyone else. but it's still really not a bad movie. there are some mind-boggling wastes of actors, like robin wright only having one scene (plus her voice on a couple phone calls) and a cantankerous one-note phillip seymour hoffman, but brad pitt and jonah hill have a surprisingly good chemistry. the baseball stuff isn't too heavy-handed and it's relatively easy to follow for a layman. my biggest problem, though, was its length. it's in the 140-minute range and should be just under 2 hours. there're at least 4 times in the last 20 minutes when it seemed like they'd wrap it up, but they kept rolling with nonsense.

I streamed this steaming pile of crap on Netflix. With 2012: Ice Age, Ed Wood finally has some serious competition. If you want to watch a movie about volcanoes that blow a giant glacier off Iceland that then barrels south at speeds over 200 mph, destroying everything in its path, this one's for you.

This starts out somewhat promising...but just fails to deliver. Not a fan.