And now... for some brain droppings!

Okay folks, there’s a couple of things I want to talk about today and all of them probably deserve their own post but I don’t have the time so I figure I’ll try to touch on each of them real fast, cheap and dirty via these quick brain-droppings. First and foremost get your butt into a theater! There are two really darn entertaining and maybe even flat-great movies that hit cinemas last weekend.

WHIP IT: Look, this movie isn’t going to win any awards and you can probably guess all the beats from the moment it starts but with all that in mind it should still entertain the crap out of you and if that doesn’t speak to it’s quality then I don’t know what does. I’ve never been the biggest Drew Barrymore fan, it’s not that I dislike her it’s just that she isn’t always for my tastes so I was a little trepadatious going into this, her directorial debut. I am more than pleasantly surprised to admit that she kind of knocks it out of the park. While not everything works a great deal of it does ESPECIALLY the character interactions and the human interactions. The roller derby stuff isn’t bad but it won’t exactly blow your socks off either. On the flips side though everything with the actors REALLY works, it all seems very natural, believable and somehow she manages to make pretty much everyone likable and sympathetic. I’m also even more convinced of the power of Ellen Page after this film. I don’t know what it is but the girl just has something, she’s massively talented and instantly likeable and I’m fairly certain at this point I might see her in pretty much anything. Don’t go in expecting an Oscar caliber film and I think you’ll have a great time with this flick. I think this one will have pretty good legs if not in the theatre than for sure on DVD and deservedly so.

ZOMBIELAND: Hands down this is the funniest movie I’ve seen all year. That’s right funnier than I LOVE YOU MAN, OBSERVE AND REPORT and THE HANGOVER. This thing is hysterical and has perhaps one of the single greatest cameos in the history of movies. No joke all throughout this extended cameo I thought I was going to blackout from lack of oxygen I was laughing so hard. While I’m not sure this film quite matches up with SHAUN OF THE DEAD it comes pretty darn close at times and it’ll make for some great double-bills one of these days. I can’t stress to you enough how much you need to see this sucker in the theater, especially before the cameo gets spoiled. You will laugh and thrill and be reminded just how much fun zombies can be.

And now for something completely different… I think it bears noting that today is the 40th anniversary of the premiere of MONTY PYTHON’S FLYING CIRCUS on the BBC. Now I know FLYING CIRCUS was a television show and this site is all about movies but if it weren’t for FLYING CIRCUS we never would have gotten HOLY GRAIL, LIFE OF BRIAN and MEANING OF LIFE, hands down three of the funniest movies ever made. Simply put I think the guys behind Monty Python are the funniest people to ever walk the face of the planet. One could write books and teach classes on the depths of their brilliance (In fact I think they maybe have) and it’s just wrong if this didn’t go mentioned in some way. Four decades later there has never been a smarter, stranger, greater brand of comedy introduced to the world and I’m not entirely sure there ever will be.