Quick Review: Easy A

Movie trailers are interesting things. Sometimes they give away almost the entire plot of a film, or at least a few key spoilers. Now and then a trailer for a comedy includes all the good jokes so that when you see the movie you're bored because all the good stuff you've already seen. Occasionally there are things in a trailer that don't make it into the actual film. And then there's the case of "Easy A." If you've seen the trailer, you know that the plot has to do with a high school girl, Olive (Emma Stone), who pretends to have sex with a gay kid so that he doesn't get bullied any more, and this leads to her getting a reputation as the sluttiest girl in school, and she rebels by wearing a red "A" since in class they're reading "The Scarlet Letter," and so on. Well, the trailer is very misleading as to the order of events and Olive's initial motivation -- where the lying actually starts. It's a different issue entirely that sets things in motion. This isn't a criticism of the movie, just a comment on the nature of trailers. The film itself is funny, if not perfect. There's a group of Christian kids that take on Olive's apparent slutty nature as a cause to moralize about, and they're pretty much a caricature. Olive's parents (Patricia Clarkson, Stanley Tucci), embodying the hippie liberal opposite of the Christian kids, are somewhat of a caricature as well. Emma Stone is fabulous, though after seeing her in "Superbad" and "The House Bunny" and "Zombieland," it's no surprise. My grade: B-plus.

P.S. Another thing on the trailer: the gay kid asks Olive for "just one good imaginary fling" -- though when he says "fling" the picture cuts to the back of his head. Naturally, since it's a PG-13 film, I assumed that's where the one F-bomb that PG-13 films are usually allowed gets dropped. Surprise -- the word used in the movie was "bonk."

Quick Review: Zombieland

So, Jesse Eisenberg and Michael Cera: if they ever appeared in the same movie, would that cause a rift in the space-time continuum? Are they not the same person? Skinny, pale, sensitive, etc.? In "Zombieland" Eisenberg plays a college student in Austin, Texas who has managed to survive the collapse of society (caused by an outbreak that led to most people turning into zombies). He's trying to get to Columbus, Ohio to find his parents and meets up with Woody Harrelson, who's on his way to Tallahassee, Florida. Harrelson's character insists that no real names be used, so they refer to each other by their destinations.

Columbus and Tallahassee run into two girls, Wichita (Emma Stone) and Little Rock (Abigail Breslin), at a grocery store. After various plot twists, they're on their way to an amusement park in California because the girls heard there are no zombies there. There's lots of zombie violence and some good lines; Columbus narrates throughout, highlighting his list of rules for surviving in Zombieland (number 1, for obvious reasons: cardio!). On the way to the amusement park they hit Hollywood, and decide to sleep at the home of a major star. This segment, featuring a cameo by said star, is easily the best part of the movie. I will not spoil it by revealing the star's name, but the whole thing is utterly brilliant. My grade: B-plus.

Reminder: there's a link on the home page that leads to a list of my grades for every movie I've seen in 2009.