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Eat brain love

Warm Bodies

The movie year gets its first big, sweet surprise with Warm Bodies, a funny and surprisingly moving take on the zombie genre from director Jonathan Levine, who gave us the wonderful 50/50. To call Warm Bodies a straight-up zombie flick would be off the mark. It’s a love story set in a horror movie world that actually works wonderfully as a love story. It’s everything the Twilight Saga wanted to be, but failed at miserably. It’s a movie that knows it’s ridiculous, embraces its ridiculousness, and emerges as something that feels astonishingly real and true-to-life. The movie opens on a red-hoodied figure we will come to know as R (Nicholas Hoult in a stardom-cementing role), a zombie with a fried memory, but still able to conduct a relatively cohesive inner narrative. That inner narrative is heard through a Hoult voiceover, a voiceover that’s clear and concise. But when R tries to speak out of his mouth, he slurs and moans and groans. He’s a lost boy in a zombie world yearning to articulate. He’s also a collector, spending his days in an airport and residing in an abandoned jet, surrounded by trinkets and vinyl albums. Of course vinyl is the music delivery mode of choice for zombies. In R’s opinion, vinyl is more “alive.” Enter Julie (Teresa Palmer, finally getting a role she deserves), a human survivor and the daughter of an emotionally dead general (John Malkovich). On patrol for medicine, her band of humans is attacked, and her boyfriend (Dave Franco) loses his life and his brains in the melee. R and Julie’s eyes meet in the aftermath, and R immediately starts to change.

George Romero fans going to Warm Bodies looking for zombie thrills might find themselves slightly disappointed. The movie is PG-13, so brains get eaten in an almost gentle fashion, and the zombie makeup is far from gory. I must also mention that the “Bonies,” which are zombies that have degenerated to the point of being skeletons, look terrible. They are the sort of CGI creation that stops a movie in its tracksby Bob Grimm whenever they pop up on screen. Some zombie purists might find it silly that bgrimm@ R can eat a brain and then feel and see the newsreview.com memories of his victim. For those of you who criticize the notion that one could experience such a sensation after eating a brain, I would4 like to remind you that you are watching a movie in which THE DEAD HAVE COME BACK TO LIFE AND ARE WALKING AROUND. Pretty much anything goes in that sort of universe. Hoult and Palmer have adorable screen chemistry. This is a thinly veiled Romeo and Juliet replay, and the two even have a balcony scene. R doesn’t remember his full name, only that his name starts with R, so we can assume it’s Romeo, Rome, Roman— probably not Rupert, right? Julie is a play on Juliet of course, and Rob Corddry plays R’s best zombie friend M (Mercutio, right?). Speaking of Corddry, he owns his scenes in this movie. The man is so gifted as a comedic actor and, as he showed in Hot Tub Time Machine, he can handle the emotional stuff with major finesse. Like R, M and his band of zombies begin to awaken and heal themselves when they remember what love is. It’s goofy, but Corddry sells it with real humor and soul. Hoult spends much of the movie sweetly trying to express himself like a love-struck teen who can’t put the words together. Palmer is so damned stunning that many can identify with his struggle to get the words right. If you are a proud Twilight hater like me, you can rest assured that Warm Bodies has very little in common with that cinematic brown sludge. It’s a refreshing, heartwarming, humorous take on a society that has become emotionally stagnant and is in severe need of reanimation. You might find yourselves looking at your smartphone a little less after seeing this one. Ω

Sorry to tell you, ladies, but he’s a dead lay.

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2Bullet to the Head Like Arnold Schwarzenegger before him in The Last Stand, Sylvester Stallone gives it his all in service to a script that fails to distinguish itself. The results? Nobody seems to care about either star vehicle. Walter Hill (48 Hrs.) directs in a very Walter Hill way, meaning his action/buddy films tend to feel the same. Unfortunately, this one has more in common with his Another 48 Hrs., in which the formula had already gotten tired. Stallone plays a tattooed thug named James Bonomo, and his buddy is South Korean Taylor Kwon (Sung Kang), which leads to more than a few uncomfortable racist jokes. The plot involves the usual crap: a double cross, a partner getting killed, somebody getting kidnapped and ax fights. You must give credit to Stallone; he looks great and he delivers his stupid lines with much aplomb. Kang is just there for the ride, offering little in a role once meant for Thomas Jane. I will say that this film features the best Christian Slater scene is a long while. But one great Slater scene does not a good movie make.

3Django Unchained Man, it bugs me that Quentin Tarantino’s latest is only passably entertaining. I have loved his past films. This is the first one I’m not in love with. Jamie Foxx plays Django, a slave purchased by a bounty hunter (Christoph Waltz) two years before the Civil War. Django is purchased because he has seen some targets the bounty hunter is pursuing. Django is promised his freedom after they find those targets. When those targets are gotten, they pursue Django’s wife (Kerry Washington) on a plantation owned by the repellent Calvin Candie (Leonardo DiCaprio). This one follows some of the same blueprints as Tarantino’s own Inglourious Basterds. It feels as if he is repeating himself a bit. There are some great performances, especially from Waltz and DiCaprio. It just doesn’t have the heft of past Tarantino efforts. Perhaps this has something to do with this being the first Tarantino movie edited by someone other than the late Sally Menke.

2Hansel & Gretel: Witch Hunters This seriously had the makings of the worst, dumbest movie ever made. Hansel and Gretel, the famed gingerbread house eaters, survive their ordeal to become worldclass witch hunters. The result is bad, but it’s one of those so-bad-it’s-almost-good endeavors. Jeremy Renner somehow got talked into this thing, and he gives it his best shot, as does Gemma Arterton as his sister, Gretel. Famke Janssen is on hand as a mean witch who plans to take the blood of a bunch of children and do something or other with it. I wasn’t really following, or caring. The 3-D is bad, so go ahead and opt for 2-D. It’s got Peter “Where is Pancakes House?” Stormare in it too, which is usually the mark of a bad film unless it’s Fargo. Lots of blood and curse words get this one an R-rating. Director Tommy Wirkola seems as if he’s playing it for camp at times, and that would’ve been the better move for the whole film. It really slows down when it takes itself too seriously.

3Mama This genuinely chilling haunted fairytale comes from producer Guillermo del Toro and writer/director Andrés Muschietti, and is based on Mushcietti’s original short film. Two little girls are abandoned by their demented father in the forest. They are discovered years later and adopted by their uncle (Nikolaj Coster-Waldau) and his girlfriend (Jessica Chastain). The little girls have taken on the characteristics of feral beasts and are convinced they are being watched over by a force they call “Mama.” As it turns out, Mama is very real, and a decent CGI creation that is both scary and just the right touch of funny. The film works well not just because Muschietti knows how to construct a good scare, but also because he does a great job getting you to care for the little girls and the Chastain character. Chastain, looking rather gothic in this one, delivers another good performance, even though she isn’t very convincing as a bass player in a punk band. I was scared throughout much of this movie.

2Movie 43 If you are going to make a movie like Kentucky Fried Movie, why not hire that film’s director, John Landis? He’s a guy who could turn in some solid/stupid comedy, and his slate seems pretty open these days. Instead, a bunch of directors try their hand at slob comedy and get very mixed results. Liev Schreiber and Naomi Watts score the most points as a couple homeschooling their son and making sure he gets the complete, humiliating experience. Terrence Howard gets a good turn as a college basketball coach, and that’s about it for the OK stuff. Most of this film is big stars like Hugh Jackman, Kate Winslet and Halle Berry embarrassing themselves. Hell, Jackman even does a good chunk of the film with a scrotum neck. Richard Gere takes part in the film’s lamest segment involving an MP3 player that looks like a super model. A lot of dud jokes with some sporadic laughter. It’s not the disaster that a lot of critics are calling it, but it’s not all that good, either.

4Silver Linings Playbook Bradley Cooper is on fire as Pat, a troubled man recently out of a mental institution and obsessed with his ex-wife. He’s so obsessed that he can’t see the value in Tiffany (Jennifer Lawrence), a recently widowed neighbor trying to befriend him. Directed by David O. Russell, the movie is a funny, slick treatment of people with real problems that works because Russell and his performers find the right balance. Robert De Niro does his best work in years as Pat’s obsessive father, and Chris Tucker gets big laughs as Pat’s former mental institution buddy. Cooper and Lawrence make for one of the year’s most interesting screen couples. They are certainly unique. Russell is establishing himself as one of the industry’s most reliable and innovative directors.

2Stand Up Guys A bunch of great actors get together and do their best with middling material. Al Pacino plays a criminal released from a long prison haul, and Christopher Walken plays the guy who is supposed to pick him up at the prison gate and take his life soon thereafter. I have a hard time with this premise right off the bat, because the two are best friends, and if you’re a crime boss with any brains and want somebody smoked, you don’t hire the dude’s best friend to do the gig. Don’t you think there’s a chance the dude won’t follow through? Anyways, Pacino and Walken hang out for a night that includes stealing cars, snorting prescription drugs, and hanging out with another old guy (Alan Arkin). The trio makes most of this watchable, but with this cast, you want something more than just watchable. Pacino works hard to get some credibility back after a string of loser movies, and he redeems himself just fine. Walken is good here, playing a man with more depth than his usual parts. Arkin is just doing his shtick. Nothing all that surprising happens.

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5Zero Dark Thirty Director Kathryn Bigelow getting snubbed by Oscar for this taut, scary, intelligent movie about the war on terror and hunt for Bin Laden is a travesty. Well, it’s a travesty when it comes to movies and stuff, not so much in the grand scheme of things. Still, Bigelow deserves praise for putting together a movie that is both exciting political thriller and terrific action movie. Golden Globe winner and Oscar nominee Jessica Chastain is deserving of the accolades as Maya, a composite character of CIA agents who managed to find Bin Laden in Pakistan and end his life. The film contains scenes of torture, but it doesn’t feel “pro-torture” by any means. It’s a great movie that will only get greater with time, and yet another reason to call Bigelow one of the best in the business.

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