Zombieland

There has been a funny zombie movie before this, the excellent Shaun of the Dead. That one takes place in England. This one is American, and I think it’s even a little better than Shaun. I think zombies are funny in and of themselves. They are so pitifully easy to kill. They shamble after you, no tactics, no lurking about, no plan at ... Read more »

Zodiac

I was living in San Francisco while the Zodiac was running loose … and for that matter, he may still be running loose, no matter what the author of the book this screenplay was based on may think. I remember how it all played in the newspapers, and how people not yet accustomed to this sort of serial killer reacted to it. (These days, of course, we’ve seen so many serial killers we’re ... Read more »

Ziegfeld Follies

Flo Ziegfeld is in heaven reminiscing about the great shows he put on. This thin plot device is not really needed to string together a series of outstanding dance routines and vaudeville-type comic sketches, many of them by people who never worked for Ziegfeld. I got lazy and used some information from Wikipedia here.
HERE’S TO THE GIRLS/BRING ON THE WONDERFUL MEN: by Roger Edens ... Read more »

Zhou Yu’s Train

We see a great many foreign films. I get the impression that, taken as a whole, films from other countries are more thoughtful, better written, more likely to be out of the box than films from the US. Hollywood makes some great movies, no question, and we are the masters of the big budget extravaganza … which is often just awful.

But something else is at work here. Only the ... Read more »

Zero Dark Thirty

Here we have a movie that went from favorite to also-ran at the Oscars in the space of about a month. Which is sad, because I regard the winner, Argo, as nothing more than a pretty good movie, while this is a masterpiece. And it was all over politics. Specifically, over two questions. The questions are, did this movie glorify torture and/or assert that it’s a ... Read more »

Zathura

Based on an illustrated children’s book by Chris van Allsburg, author of Jumanji, which was only a so-so fantasy film, and The Polar Express, which was a damn good one. I’ve never seen any of these books, so I don’t know how faithful the movie versions are. I didn’t realize it, but this is a sequel to Jumanji.

There is a ... Read more »

Zack and Miri Make a Porno

This movie managed to do something very odd to me, and I’m groping for words to describe it. I can’t say it offended me. I believe I’m impossible to offend with obscenity or profanity; the only words I find offensive are racist terms, and those only when used in a certain way. A black character here says “nigger” a lot, for instance, and it doesn’t offend me at all. I can’t say it grossed ... Read more »

Z

I haven’t seen this movie in a long, long time. I remember I liked it, but I’m including it here because I don’t have any movies beginning with the letter Z. I promise I’ll look at it again one of these days, and review it.