October 2, 2009, - 6:23 pm
Weekend Box Office: Anti-Religion “Invention of Lying,” Great “Zombieland,” Butch Feminist “Whip It,” Mikey Moore Agit-Prop
This week’s new releases present a troika of offensive, leftist blather. Hatred of religion, hatred of capitalism, hatred of femininity–take your pick. There’s a movie for each one, this week. Ironically, it also includes one of my top comedies of the year, the excellent “Zombieland.”
* “Capitalism: A Love Story“: Read my complete review. Hypocrite Michael Moore tells us that capitalism is the root of all evil, while it’s actually the root of his fat bank account. Again, read my complete review of this lying agit-prop.
FOUR MARXES
* “Zombieland“: This is one of my top ten or top 15 movies of the year. It’s funny, it’s cute, it’s got zombies, doomsday scenarios, and, yes, Bill Murray. I laughed a lot, and I liked the cool, fast-paced story and the positive ending in a world that’s been destroyed.
Normally, I’m no fan of actor Woody Harrelson, but he has spunk in the film, as Tallahassee, the bad-ass who loves to shoot and kill zombies who want to eat and kill humans. Plus the movie also stars rising star, Jesse Eisenberg, whom I’ve liked in everything in which I’ve seen him. The movie takes place in an America over-run by zombies. Few humans are left, among them Tallahassee and Columbus, two guys who’ve taken on the names of their hometowns. Together they fight off and kill zombies and struggle to survive. All the wile Columbus (Eisenberg) comes up with rules to live by. Tallahassee is searching for America’s last Twinkie (talk about great product placement).
Soon they meet two sisters, Wichita and Little Rock, who scam them. But they all band together to stay alive. It’s a fun, light-hearted movie and not typical of the doomsday movies we’ve seen to date. Enjoyable, entertaining, and the way comedies should be.
But definitely not for kids. There’s much killing (mostly of zombies), and there are a lot of great shootings. Fine by me. Plus a lot of f- and s-words. But it didn’t bother me and was proper in the context of two guys left alone in America fighting for their lives. I liked it all the same. Great movie.
THREE-AND-A-HALF REAGANS
* “The Invention of Lying“: More like, “The Invention of Religion-Hatred.” Ricky Gervais–creator of “The Office”–wrote, directed, and stars in this piece of garbage comedy that has it’s funny moments, but is mostly uncomfortable and trashes religion.
You see, you and I didn’t know it, but once there was a world where no-one could lie. They could only tell the truth, the painfully honest truth. Coke commercials featured Coke employee saying their product is “just brown-colored sugar water.” A Motel is called “A Place for People Who Barely Know Each Other to Have Sex.” Pepsi ads say, “When They’re Out of Coke.” And blind dates tell the blunt facts about what they think of each other’s appearance . . . before the date has even begun. Oh, and they also tell each other TMI, as in more information than we needed to know.
Gervais plays Mark Bellison, a failed writer for a movie studio (movies are filmed readings of history, since this is a world where only truth happens). Down on his luck, he suddenly tells a lie and then keeps telling them. He finds that everyone believes his lies and the lies change his life. He’s soon a smashing success, rather than the just fired, broke failure that he was. He’s in love with “beautiful” Jennifer Garner (with lips to injected with crap they look ridiculous), but she doesn’t want a man who is fat with a pug nose, because “genetically” this will give her “ugly” kids.
Bellison’s mother is dying, and in the hospital, he lies to her and claims that after death, she won’t disappear into oblivion, but that there’s an afterlife. But it’s not true, it’s just a lie he told to let her die in peace. Nurses overhear this and soon the world is camped outside Bellison’s apartment. He makes up more stories about a “man in the sky” who controls your life and afterlife and that if you are good, you get to “live in a mansion in the sky” after you die. But if you are bad, you go to a bad place. Bellison writes “the nine rules” out on two tablet-shaped Pizza Hut pizza boxes. Get it?–Moses, Ten Commandments, two tablets? Yup, they’re all being mocked here as a complete made-up lie. Why Pizza Hut, Coke, and Pepsi would want product placement in this offensive movie, I have no idea. But it’s a stupid decision.
Yup, G-d, the “man in the sky” is a silly lie for gullible stupid believers in the view of Gervais and this movie filled with anti-religious bigotry. Ditto for the concepts of heaven and hell. It’s just “mansions in the sky” mythology for idiots. There are no churches or synagogues, only buildings called “A Quiet Place to Think About the Man in the Sky.”
Remember this, the next time you hear the name Ricky Gervais. I was a fan until this movie. Now, I now he’s just a vehement hater of religion and people of faith. This movie is more intolerant and zealous than any Christian or Jewish teachings I’ve seen. (The movie also stars Rob Lowe and Jonah Hill.)
Ricky Gervais . . . Bill Maher’s English counterpart.
THREE MARXES
* “Whip It“: Destined to be a cult classic for the butch crowd, this movie is this decade’s “Pretty In Pink” for the combat boot set . . . minus the pink and definitely the pretty.
A nerdy alternative girl in high school in Austin, Texas hates being in beauty pageants, opting to be a bruiser in the more masculine roller derby. There, she becomes a star and makes new friends and enemies. Since she’s underage she lies about her real age and lies to her parents.
Ellen Page, the world’s dullest and most over-rated actress, plays the girl. Not only is she vastly over-rated and a product of way too much undue media hype, but Page looks and acts exactly like Janeane Garofalo two decades ago (and shares her wacko lefty politics). I find her very annoying and lackluster. She always plays the same character–herself–and tries way too hard to be an aloof, offbeat alternative girl. It comes off as trumped up baloney and silliness. And thanks for telling us you spent your off time from Hollywood in an Oregon commune, Ellen. We get it. You’re “alternative.” Big whoop. Her dumb sex in slow motion underwater in a swimming pool scene in “Whip It” was so stupid it was comical.
This movie was directed, parts of it in Michigan, by Drew Barrymore, who also has a small part in the movie.
Even though Barrymore is a spokesmodel for Cover Girl cosmetics, the message she’s pimping in this movie is: femininity . . . very bad, butch/masculine women . . . very good.
There were two things I liked in this otherwise crummy movie. It shows a loving, present, and involved father (Daniel Stern) who cares about his daughter and wants her to be happy. That’s something we rarely see coming out of Hollywood. Plus I liked the cool names–like “Smashley Simpson”–of the roller derby characters.
But neither of those two things were enough to redeem this bad movie. Not even close. A complete waste of time.
TWO-AND-A-HALF MARXES
Tags: Anti-religion, Atheism, Atheist, Capitalism: A Love Story, Drew Barrymore, Ellen Page, Jesse Eisenberg, Jonah Hill, Michael Moore, Movie Reviews, Rob Lowe, Smashley Simpson, The Invention of Lying, Whip It, Woody Harrelson, Zombieland
I disagree with your review of Zombieland, I saw it this evening and it was very stupid, cliche, and boring.
Matthew on October 3, 2009 at 12:46 am