Ruben Fleischer made his directorial debut with the 2009 zombie comedy Zombieland and his second effort, 30 Minutes or Less has a new red band trailer, and I think it may be safe to say that Ruben and I are going to be great friends.

Zombieland was a hit-or-miss film for most people that I know, but I loved it, and after watching this trailer I think it might be impossible to dislike 30 Minutes or Less, which is about a pizza delivery boy (Jesse Eisenberg) who is abducted by two men in monkey suits (Danny McBride and Nick Swardson) who strap a bomb vest to his chest and force him to rob a bank. His only recourse is to beg his friend (Aziz Ansari) for help…

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Paramount is making G.I. Joe 2, and it looks like the Zombieland writers have picked up another scripting gig.  They’re apparently writing every movie this year, like the screenwriting equivalent of Sam Worthington. A couple days ago, Collider confirmed that Paramount would be making the sequel, today an IESB source says Zombieland writers Rhett Reese and Paul Wernick have been hired.  Stephen Sommers hasn’t yet signed on to return as director.

I never saw G.I. Joe, and though plenty of people claim it wasn’t as bad as it looked, this clip was more than enough reason for me to avoid it.   The writing doesn’t seem so hard though.  Let’s take a crack:

CHANNING TATUM: (*unintelligible mumbling*) Ermf.  Hey, girl.

MARLON WAYANS steps on a rake. *Splat sound effect*

CHANNING TATUM: Ho snap!

CHANNING TATUM and RACHEL NICHOLS laugh as they watch MARLON WAYANS stumble around trying to uncross his eyes.

RACHEL NICHOLS:  Enough fooling around, boys.  I need to go for a jog.  I’m a scientist.  *pours water in her hair, takes off her shirt*

[10-minute montage of RACHEL NICHOLS' boobs bouncing in a sports bra, set to the latest Linkin Park single]

MARLON WAYANS: (slobbering like a dog) Yo, girl, when you gonna let me get witchoo?

RACHEL NICHOLS: I don’t believe in love. I’m a scientist. *flips her hair, sucks on lollipop*

MARLON WAYANS: Yo, that is wack!  *gets hit in the crotch by an eagle*

CHANNING TATUM: (*unintelligible mumbling*) Ermf.  Hey, girl.

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Here’s your box office wipe-up for the weekend of October 2-4.  Now with helpful section headings.

Zombieland kicked ass
Buoyed by strong word-of-mouth that I thought it didn’t fully deserve, it more than tripled the next-highest new release (and no, I don’t consider a re-release of Toy Story in 3D a new release).  That said, it did have its moments.  It’s at least a triumph of solid execution, if not of creative thinking.  …Or perhaps you prefer your box office roundups with more truthy pop-psychology?

Horror comedy struggles with general audiences because of its awkward thematic and tonal clash: comedy is generally benevolent while horror is inherently malevolent, rendering horror comedy too funny to be scary and too scary to be funny. Zombieland skirted this issue by falling squarely on the side of action comedy in its marketing campaign. [BoxOfficeMojo]

Good point.  But on the other hand, go f’ck yourself.

Invention of Lying… not so much.
I wanted to see this more than Zombieland, but ended up seen Zombieland to see what the fuss was about.  Perhaps that was Invention‘s problem.  For a movie you’d expect to have good buzz (who doesn’t like Ricky Gervais?), it didn’t have very good buzz.  But you know what does have good buzz?  A bee drinking martinis.  Remember I said that.

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Jew Zombie Killers Can’t Hump: A Zombieland Review

Zombieland is a road movie about two of the last survivors of the zombie plague, who don’t really have anywhere to go.  They’re instead driven by their desires: Woody Harrelson’s “Tallahassee” a desire to find the last Twinkies on Earth, and Jesse Eisenberg’s “Columbus” to finally kiss a girl.  It’s a sort of funny premise for a sort of funny movie.  A movie that turns out to be a lot like the Twinkie — tasty enough, but provides little nutritional value, and after you’re done you feel kind of dirty.  It’s pleasant going down*, but you get the sense that the whole thing was ultra processed, created using proven science formulas to manipulate the consumer’s senses in a specific way.  Crap, this is a really good analogy, someone call USA Today.

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This is the newest trailer for Zombieland (if you’re keeping score at home, this is international version — I posted the R-rated version a few weeks ago).  It stars Jesse Eisenberg as a shy, cerebral neurotic who teams up with Woody Harrelson, an impulsive, slovenly redneck, to kill zombies.  Their relationship kind of reminds me of me and my old roommate. He’d always be on my ass about not cleaning my dishes, and I’d always be punching him in the stomach for being Jewish.  Also, we fought zombies.  Anyway, I’m trying not to waste too much breath on this movie because it looks like a ball of cliches mooshed together and deep fried in unoriginality and then dipped in Woody Harrelson.  “Dude!  It’ll be funny because they’ll kill zombies!  Dude!  It’ll be cool ’cause he’ll wear sunglasses.  And then he’ll get hit in the head with a golf ball!”  No.  Just, no.

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