Cowboy Chameleon.

Head over to The Costa Rica News by clicking here and read my review for Rango.

Zombieland **

Director: Ruben Fleischer
Cast: Woody Harrelson, Jesse Eisenberg, Emma Stone, Abigail Breslin

After zombies have taken all over the world, human survivor Columbus (Eisenberg) is trying to reach his hometown to see if he has a family to get back to.
Not out of any special connection, but because it's the normal thing to do, as he explains in a self deprecating narration.
On the way there he encounters Tallahassee (Harrelson) a Twinkie (as in Hostess pastries) loving redneck with a special talent for killing zombies and tough sisters Wichita (Stone) and Little Rock (Breslin) with whom he forms an unlikely family.
They stick together, only after learning to trust each other of course, and Columbus gives up his original plan in order to help the sisters get to Pacific Playland, an amusement park in California that reminds them of better times.
Forget the fact that these people think a rollercoaster ride is a priority, what matters here is that the filmmakers chose this over more "important" things.
It's clear from the start that this isn't a movie a la "28 Days" and its intention isn't to use zombies as a parable for anything else. What "Zombieland" tries is to push the genre forward and trying to emulate the wonderful "Shaun of the Dead", the filmmakers end up delivering something that works more like a buddy/road movie with a pinch of zombie parody.
Never scary enough to get the most out of the genre, the movie usually relies on the zombies as means to justify its need to utter pop culture references (Harrelson's micro rendering of "Deliverance" is delightful!) and exploit the likability of the actors.
Breslin can do no bad and even when she's holding a machine gun she manages to look adorable and age appropriate, while Eisenberg brings his "I am not Michael Cera but I act and look like him" qualities to a place where you can actually identify with his too self conscious deprecating.
The movie has its moments, in fact it has one of the most memorable cameos in any zombie movie ever, which despite its hilarious finale sadly feels like it lasts too little.
But most of the time it movies around aimlessly, like a zombie...
"Zombieland" is an exaltation of everything that is geek, from cult movie references to shameful confessions about virginity it's all a fantasy for people like Eisenberg's character.
Because of this it has franchise possibilities; if this one's about the geek getting the girl, there can be a million more about how he overcomes obstacles he can be bullied for.
But for all its heart it can't help itself from making the audience expect for it to end with geek waking up from a crazy dream with a familiar wet spot on his underpants.

My Sister's Keeper *1/2

Director: Nick Cassavetes
Cast: Cameron Diaz, Abigail Breslin
Jason Patric, Sofia Vassilieva, Evan Ellingson
Joan Cusack, Alec Baldwin

How can anyone say or think something bad about a cancer-related film? That seems to be the idea around which director Nick Cassavetes worked to deliver this manipulative, lazy excuse of a movie.
During the opening credits we learn that Anna (Breslin) was conceived in vitro as a perfect genetic match for her sister Kate (Vassilieva) who suffers from leukemia.
Her "spare parts", as called by a doctor, have kept her sister alive for more than ten years, but when she has to donate one of her kidneys Anna decides it's been enough. She goes to lawyer Campbell Alexander (Baldwin) and sues her parents to obtain "medical emancipation" creating the ethical dilemma at the center of the film.
Is she the bad seed or does she have a point?
As played by Breslin, Anna is the only character in the whole movie we would like to know more of. Breslin who possesses amazing abilites to act like a kid (not like a creepy grownup trapped inside a kid's body) gives her character little traits that make her believable and touching.
When she's confronted by her parents Sara (Diaz) and Brian (Patric), Anna goes into her own little world; most of the movie Breslin makes us linger between the two possibilities, only to be let down by Cassavetes awful screenplay and direction.
The thing about the film is that it has already taken sides and we spend the whole movie watching all the pain Kate has gone through.
From vomiting blood, to losing her hair, to falling in love and then losing that too and we rarely get insight into why Anna's plead also has justifications.
If this bias wasn't enough, Cassavetes goes the extra mile to make the whole movie seem like a collection of Kodak moments and upbeat musical montages that pop out of nowhere and last for ages (as that famous online spoof goes "is this a movie or a CD?").
Shot beautifully by Caleb Deschanel, who even makes the chemotherapy room look dreamlike, the contrast between the visuals and the emotions the characters try to convey is distasteful.
The actors do their best with what they're given though, Baldwin is good (even if sometimes he narrates like a detective out of a film noir), Cusack is moving as a sensible judge (despite the burden of corniness she's given to carry) and it's refreshing to see Diaz stretch her acting muscle a bit, even if she doesn't always succeed.
But most of this gets lost in the amalgam of cliché Cassavetes concocts. Whenever the action is steering to make Anna seem sane he inserts a random flashback reminding us why Kate is more important.
Then there's a whole subplot full-o-holes with their brother Jesse (Ellingson) who lingers in the streets and sits atop building rooftops harboring what seems like something awful which we never fully understand.
Exploiting likeability to the ultimate factor, Cassavetes also becomes aware that while cancer patients are impossible to dislike, so is Abigail Breslin.
And he gives her character a final twist that should make us shed the waterworks, but only serves to expose the utter lack of respect the filmmaker has for both the sick and the healthy.
Please, don't give this movie its shot.

Definitely, Maybe **

Director: Adam Brooks
Cast: Ryan Reynolds, Abigail Breslin
Isla Fisher, Elizabeth Banks, Rachel Weisz
Kevin Kline, Derek Luke

After learning about sex at school, 10 year old Maya (Breslin) begins to question her father, Will,(Reynolds) about his own experience before her mom.
Slightly surprised by this request Will comes up with the original idea to tell his daughter the story of his life, but changes the names of the women in order for her to guess which is her mom.
Flash back to 1992 when Will is working for Bill Clinton's campaign and the three mother candidates are: Emily (Banks), Will's college sweetheart who is having trouble following his pace, sexy erudite Summer (Weisz) who has a thing for a seasoned writer (Kline) but can't help liking Will and finally April (Fisher) a kooky, free spirit working as copygirl for the campaign.
While original in concept, the film lacks spirit in the execution and before long ends up feeling like the extension of a joke that wasn't so good to begin with.
Sometimes forgetting that it's supposed to feel like a love jigsaw, it tries to cover all the right bases and instead of focusing on something, goes for a "feel good" sense in every single way.
Nobody is dislikeable and the script manages to be condescending without ever feeling selfconscious.
Reynolds makes for a satisfying lead, even if his performance is fueled by inertia more than anything else, since he knows everyone can overact him here, which is why it's the girls who stay with you the most.
Banks' "all American" beauty has a sweet effervescent mood, while Weisz is sexy, intriguing and the most real of the characters.
But leaving the film you will probably have stronger impressions from Fisher who does her best Amy Adams impersonation to become the girl you root for the most and of course Breslin, who unlike other child actresses is able to keep a balance between being a child and a child thinking they can act like an adult, which helps her deliver a performance that goes from "staple cute kid" to fully formed character.
While it's true that revisiting our love histories is a double edged sword, "Definitely, Maybe" has the innocence none of its characters does and is able to remain hopeful amidst a world that constantly tries to remind you hope is practically gone.
Whatever you decide to make out of it, the one unforgivable thing the film does is try to treat you like Maya, when truth is even she knows best...