Thursday Movie Picks #13: Zombie Movies

I've been loving the weekly themes that Wandering Through the Shelves has been hosting. My movie knowledge isn't expansive enough (yet!) for me to take part every week, but I had great fun compiling a post for the Movies Set Locally theme and now I'm here again with my 3 favourite Zombie Movies.

Granted, this isn't a very inspired list as I'm not the biggest horror fan around, but I absolutely love these films so they definitely deserve their place in this post.

I may as well start with the most obvious. Zombieland is one of my favourite comedies, let alone horror movie. Funnily enough, Jenna first introduced me to it about 18 months ago and I must have seen it at least 5 times since. The first ten minutes still make me jump! Now excuse me, I need to do some cardio, you know, just in case...

You can't talk about zombie movies without at least mentioning Shaun of the Dead. The scene where the group try and fit in is just fantastic. I was walking to the train station to get home when I was last in Birmingham and accidently joined a local charity's 'zombie walk' and felt the urge to do a Shaun. I was getting some very odd looks walking amongst a crowd of (horrifyingly convincing) zombies!

Warm Bodies might just be the best Valentine's Day movie I've ever been taken to. What a brilliant twist on the typical romantic movie that couples go to see! This was even better than I thought it would be, and surprisingly funny to boot, and let's face it, Nicholas Hoult is just a sweetie, zombie or not.

Don't forget to check out the list of upcoming themes that Wandering Through the Shelves is hosting here, it would be great to see more bloggers take part!

Best and Worst: Emma Stone

What feels like a lifetime ago, I created a post about the best and worst Ryan Reynolds films I'd seen. He was a great place to start because I'd actually seen all of his films that had been released! Or at least I thought, until I remembered Turbo. Jenna and I then started frantically searching IMDB for other actors or actresses we loved, and I realised that there were only 2 Emma Stone films I'd never seen, Ghosts of Girlfriends Past and Marmaduke.

 

I want maybe be a little controversial here and say that I don't think animated films should count. Not for this anyway. I've seen Ghosts of Girlfriends Past now but I really don't think Marmaduke is going to make it into the best or worst category. If you really disagree then speak up, and I'll watch it!

 

 

I'm telling you, this was such a hard decision. I was stuck between Zombieland, Easy A and Crazy, Stupid Love. I almost resorted to a game of 'eenie meenie miney mo' to choose, but then I thought about which one I'd watched the most, and then Crazy, Stupid, Love won hands down. I actually watched this for the first time because I love Steve Carell so much, but I didn't expect to love it as much as I did.

 

I'll try to do a proper review for this soon, but for now I'll focus on Emma Stone. This, for me, is the role she was born to play. It's the role that made me fall in love with her and if I could pick an actress to play me in a film about my life, it would be her. She's so elegant and beautiful, and yet at the same time she's an absolute klutz and comes out with some cracking one liners. If you've never seen this, go and see it now!

 

 

When I first heard about Movie 43 I was really excited. The cast looked amazing! I actually thought it would be a sort of spoof on Love Actually, and that the individual stories would tie in at the end, but no. It was just a series of sketches ranging from actually kind of funny to just plain awkward. Never again will I look at Hugh Jackman in the same way. I think it shows how bad this film is when my favourite sketch was done by an actor who I just really can't stand, Stephen Merchant.

 

Emma Stone's section wasn't too bad actually to be honest. It was pretty funny to begin with, but then it just turned a little awkward. I've lent Jenna the DVD and for her benefit, it's most definitely NSFD! 

 

Here's just a little shout-out to some of Emma Stone's other great roles:

 

Attack of the Sequels! Blogathon

A fellow blogger, Rhys at Feeling Fuzzier is hosting a blogathon over the next couple of weeks all about sequels - ones that haven't happened and that we think should. I've been really thinking hard about this one!

 

Here are the rules, taken from the original post:



1. Pick up to 5 films that you enjoyed, but never got a follow-up film. You can include films that are already sequels (e.g. Hellboy 2: The Golden Army). Doesn't matter how ridiculous it may sound.

2. Talk about why you'd like to see a sequel to those movies, and where said sequels would take the story.

3. Please include the blogathon banner (above) somewhere in your post. 

4. The deadline is August 7th - but I'm sure I'll go easy on any late submissions ;)

 

And so, whilst Jenna is still on holiday, here are my choices, in no particular order...

 

#1 - Green Lantern (2011)

It seems I'm doomed to forever talk about Green Lantern. I'm really sorry Rhys, I know you picked this too, but this is literally the first film that came to my head when I saw your announcement. For all of it's flaws, you only have to look through the Green Lantern comics to understand that a far more awesome story could be told in a sequel. I'd love to see a sequel, or even a re-make that tells the story of the Sinestro Corps.

 



#2 - Zombieland (2009)

I think a 'sort-of' sequel might have been made for Zombieland in the form of a terrible TV Show, but I would love to see a real sequel. I don't know whether I'd like it to pick up from where the first ended at the theme park, or perhaps follow a different set of survivors. All I know is it would be epic.

 

#3 - Chronicle (2012)

I had to watch Chronicle twice before I really appreciated it, but it's a really clever concept and Dane DeHaan did a fantastic job I thought. Chronicle didn't really have a fully closed ending, and so I think there's a sequel in there somewhere, about what Andrew does when he gets to the monastery. Does he learn to control his powers, or do they get the best of him again?

 

#4 - Ferris Bueller's Day Off (1986)

 

Only recently did I watch Ferris Bueller's Day Off, but it reminded me in some ways of Office Space, and then I thought, how cool would a sequel be of a grown up Ferris deciding to take a day off work? Throw in a couple of cameos of the original cast? Why hasn't this been done yet?!

 

#5 Lemony Snicket's A Series of Unfortunate Events (2004)

I actually don't know what happened here. I read every book in the Series of Unfortunate Events when I was younger and loved them. Then they made a film out of the first book, and I loved it. So what happened to the others? So okay, there's a few dark themes in here, but it had so much potential, and Jim Carrey was just born for the role Count Olaf.

Review: Zombieland (2009)

I'm a bit of a wuss when it comes to scary films, I can't watch one on my own. The gore and psychological torment doesn't bother me so much, but it's those jumpy bits that have me running scared! Zombieland was on my Emma Stone list though so I was going to have to face this, and well, it is a comedy mainly, so I manned up.

I watched this for the first time with Jenna last year, and I convinced my other half to watch it with me again just before we went to Cornwall for a short break the other day. I actually forgot how jumpy the first five minutes are! I had already seen this and I told Allie it wasn't jumpy at all, forgetting completely about all the jumps in the first few scenes - oops!!

So this film follows four characters who are some of the only survivors on earth, Columbus (Eisenberg) is trying to get to his family in Ohio, Wichita and Little Rock (Stone and Breslin) are trying to reach an amusement park they have heard is free of zombies, and Tallahassee (Harrelson), well, he's just on a search for Twinkies. Who wouldn't be on a search for Twinkies mmmm!! You could say they sort of join forces on their missions.

*SPOILER ALERT* My favourite parts of this movie are all the little details like the text of the rules that pop up occasionally, and the zombie kill of the week. It's little details like those that really make you remember a film. Not to say that was all I liked, the film was hillarious! I probably would have appreciated the Bill Murray scenes more if I really knew who he was... WHAT???  You don't know who Bill Murray is??  Groundhog Day?? Ghostbusters?? COME ON!!!  Anyway, moving on, I love the text popping up on screen, I think it made this movie - I still would like to see the full list of the rules if I'm honest!  I think Rule Number 1 was my favourite because it kept popping up 'Cardio'

 

I loved Woody Harrelson's character in this, specifically “in the ass-kicking business – and business is gooooood!” and I could complete relate to his love for Twinkies!! The contrast between him and scaredy cat Columbus makes for brilliant viewing and good fast paced banter between the two.  This is one film that I didn't particularly like Emma Stone's character, although the further through the film I got the more I got to like her!

 

 

Seriously though this film is great, I also heard that it was based a little on the game Left 4 Dead 2 which makes me happy as I freaking love that game. Never heard of this... Okay, Flick Chicks needs a games night at some point. Left 4 Dead is amazing and I'm terrible at it which makes it even better.

 

In case you need to be reminded of some of the rules for staying alive, here you go...you can thank me later.

A great film to watch with friends or family with a couple of drinks and a take-out!  Brilliant film, laugh out loud funny and delightfully clever.  Can happily watch this over and over again and never get bored!