A few films we’ve had the opportunity to check out lately:

ZombieLand :  Superfantastic – Probably the best time I’ve had in a movie theatre in a long time, this ultra-violent action comedy was hysterically funny and totally enjoyable from beginning to end. Bonus points to the incredible opening credits with the slow-mo metal-music filmwork of zombies taking over the earth. I loved the characters, and the action sequences and zombie-killing scenes were inventive and clever. Woody Harrelson is badass. I have my fingers crossed for a sequel to this one – it was just too much fun.

The Ugly Truth : Lame – I rented it expecting a dirty comedy, but even in that context I got offended pretty early on by the really overblown stereotypes. About 20 minutes into it, still not liking any of the characters, we turned it off. I like Gerard Butler and Katherine Heigl, but what we watched was just mean-spirited ranting and narcissism.

The Proposal : Alright – Here’s another two characters we don’t really like, falling in love like a cougar fantasy. This one was actually cute, in some ways (Betty White is always awesome), but the overall relationship (that is, the focus of the film) is really icky. It’s made even worse when the hometown girl shows up because suddenly Sandra Bullock’s character looks even more like a shrill uptight cradle-robbing workaholic loser. And we’re supposed to be watching them fall in love over the course of two days while they hardly actually see eachother… Whatever. Gross, Ryan Reynolds.

The Darjeeling Express: Meh? – I’ve wanted to see this Wes Anderson film for ages and finally getting to watch it we weren’t sure, after an hour and a half, if we liked it or not. The european-styled “pre-movie” tacked onto the beginning with Natalie Portman in it was confusing and too art-house for us to get into, and then the story (which was lavishly presented by an amazing camera crew) just kindof dragged along. Bonus points for the guy who buys a live Cobra and packs it in with his luggage. Snakes on a train!

Orphan: Pretty good – We rented this horror flick just before Halloween and watched it while I was sick with the flu. Being a horror-film rocket-Einstein, I had the big twist figured out about 30 minutes into the film, but that still made it creepy and relatively enjoyable. It took a drubbing from the critics, but I thought it was clever. Natasha found it scary but not -too- scary, and while some of the acting was tortured (okay, we get it, the mom was an alcoholic), the plot moves along well with birds, nuns and siblings meeting a grisly fate on a regular basis.