andPOP - Pop Culture With Substance

Here’s an old-fashioned crowd-pleaser; albeit, a crowd-pleaser with lots of blood spewing, limb-chewing, and bone breaking – but really, why would you see a movie called Zombieland if you didn’t want to see that?

Here’s a horror film that acknowledges how ridiculous it is by depicting a group of eight-year-old zombie girls before the opening credits; and a comedy that, by casting Jesse Eisenberg in the lead role, quickly establishes an enjoyably quirky tone, and maintains it by adding Abigail Breslin as a shotgun-toting 12-year-old and Woody Harrelson (in a terrific performance) as the movie’s resident badass.

Here’s a genre movie with a coherent plot – Breslin and Emma Stone, playing nervy sisters, push the thin but logical story along – and which pays attention to its characters, giving each of them solid backstories and respectable screentime. (My biggest complaint with Zombieland is that while the sisters are much stronger than typical damsels in distress, they nonetheless wind up being damsels in distress).

Here’s an action movie with an extended, glorious climax at an amusement park, with all the standbys (roller coaster, tilt-a-whirl, drop mechanism) used in exactly the way you’d expect; plus characters using really big guns, and firing them with a generous helping of one-liners.

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Ryan Reynolds will play an aspiring rock star in Superbad director Greg Mottola’s newest film, Adventureland.

The coming-of-age comedy, also written by Mottola, will star Jesse Eisenberg (The Squid and the Whale) as a recent college graduate in 1987 who has no choice but to work at a local amusement park. The uptight Eisenberg will learn to loosen up with the help of his love interest (Kristen Stewart, In The Land of Women) and Reynolds’ character, who is worshipped by all the kids at the park.

Reynolds is currently dating Hollywood darling Scarlett Johansson. Though the couple has not confirmed their status, they caused a tabloid frenzy last week when they were photographed walking hand in hand at LAX. They were returning from Vancouver, where Johansson was reportedly introduced to Reynolds’ family.

Reynolds was previously engaged to fellow Canadian Alanis Morissette.