"Zombieland" and "Inglourious Basterds"

During one of my days off two weeks ago, I watched "Zombieland", "Love Happens", and "Inglourious Basterds" while consuming toasted cheese bread and an Italian sausage calzone from Stromboli's.  The movies will be the main point of this post...but I honestly had to pause a second just to savor the memory of the food all over again.  I love Stromboli's.  Why can't they just agree to move their restaurant wherever I end up making my residence?  I don't think that request is too unreasonable.  City Bagel, I'm talking to you, too.

I think I got distracted.

Anyway.  Can I just say that I LOVED "Zombieland"?  I plan on purchasing that movie now.  I really didn't expect it, but it's just an all-around feel-good movie.  Jesse Eisenberg ("Columbus") gave a really funny, light-hearted narration throughout the movie that actually made a zombie apocalypse sound less full of despair than you would imagine.  Woody Harrelson's performance as "Tallahassee" was hilarious and, on completely separate occasions, both heart-wrenching and awe-inspiring.  If I was a dude and living in post-zombie apocalyptic America, I would totally want to be him.  Emma Stone and Abigail Breslin as "Wichita" and "Little Rock", respectively, did a great job playing a con-artist pair of sisters, although I'm not too sure why it is necessary to continue being a con artist when the country is uninhabited.  I suppose the movie would have been a bit more boring without that angle, though!  Bill Murray's cameo is excellent and really adds humor/interest to the movie, which cannot always be said of celebrity vanity cameos.

 

Of the other movies, I didn't enjoy "Love Happens" very much at all (only Aaron Eckhart somewhat impressed me), but I thought "Inglourious Basterds" was pretty good.  The ending of "Inglourious Basterds" was epic and very much made up for any small doses of boredom that I may have encountered throughout the duration of the movie.  I thought the stand-out performances of the movie were Melanie Laurent as "Shosanna/Emmanuelle Mimieux" and Christoph Waltz as "Hans Landa."  Laurent's "Shosanna/Emmanuelle" was a complex and interesting character, and I loved how she displayed deep emotion with such restraint...well, throughout most of the movie.  It doesn't hurt that she's strikingly beautiful, either.  Waltz's "Hans Landa" simply exudes evil during every scene, but most of the time with a great sense of control (at least for a Tarantino villain, anyway).  He was quite chilling to watch.

In summary:

Watch "Zombieland" and "Inglourious Basterds."  Don't watch "Love Happens."  Unless you're a huge Aaron Eckhart and/or Jennifer Aniston fan.  Or you like to be depressed without the benefit of actually learning anything from the experience.  Or you just don't like to listen to me, in which case I say, "FINE, THEN!"