Saturday 3-Fer...

I showed up at the Grove sometime around 11, intent on making my Saturday a day at the movies. It's been a long time since there have been 3 movies released in the same weekend that I really wanted to see -- Invention of Lying, Zombieland and Whip It. Also, I have no problem spending 5 hours of a beautiful Los Angeles Saturday in the dark of the matinee. So, that's what I did, starting off with this one...

Part of the reason I was so inclined to participate in this binge was because two of my obsessions held starring roles, starting with Ricky Gervais. He is a unique, unique talent and actually co-directed this one too. I liked it...or especially parts of it. I find him fascinating - his performance, the direction of his voice. But unlike Ghost Town, I think you can wait for this one to come out on DVD.

Second up was Zombieland...

Excellent, awesome. Maybe the winner of the day. Jesse Eisenberg has been getting some press in here lately and I don't know how all these excellent roles are lining up for him to take (also Social Network), but they are...and he's killing them all. Love this guy. The rest of the cast is perfect, the movie is perfect for what it is. Absolutely see it. But the best moment of the movie happened in the opening credits. There's this intro to a world infested with flesh eating zombies and they're tearing people apart and blood and guts are spewing everywhere and I noticed this stumbling movement out of the corner of my eye. 3 people were already getting up to walk out...but here's the thing - they were a combined age of at least 230, walking sticks and traumatized looks and all. They walked right past me and I couldn't take it. I pulled my hood back and stood up, found eyes with anyone and everyone I could - some great witnessing moment. How the fuck did they end up at a matinee of Zombieland? And who gave them this recco? What did they think a movie called Zombieland was going to be about? How the fuck could they confuse the title Zombieland with anything else that is out right now? Amazing, I thought...and then of how much I wished for that moment I wasn't such a proud loner. One of my friends mentioned to me going in that this movie had one of the greatest cameos in the history of cameos. I was looking for it the whole time and when it came, I said the same thing to myself - hands down. Greatest ever. Hands down. It doesn't matter how much I build it up.

Last one was Whip It, starring my second obsession of the day - the wonderfully talented Ms. Ellen Page...

There are a couple actresses out there that I'll see in anything, because they make me feel like I've got a crush when I walk out. She's absolutely that to me...just holds it so tight. Good movie, good moments, flawless lead.

I walked out around 5 and it was cool and it felt like fall. I started to think of how little I miss summer, how I didn't want to be doing anything else anywhere else in the world. That's usually how I'm judging my life these days. Lately, it's been lining up fairly well. New SNL on tonight, I've got a new script that I think I might be excited to start writing...I mean really start writing (sorry TB). Sometimes, I feel like I want to fall in love for hours at a time, that it's the only thing that's missing. But I know better. Seriously, it would never work out.

Adventureland...

Great movie. And it's not because I spent the summer after my freshman year of college working at a Six Flags in Jackson, New Jersey. I lived in a company house with 8 other baseball players from all over the country. We'd have bonfires of garbage because nobody ever came to pick it up and rave dance parties with the European kids who came over to work for the summer. To get let in, I'd ask them to bring their free park passes, given to any employee after they accumulated a certain number of hours on the job. We'd get blacked out and fuck this house like you wouldn't believe. There was a Czech girl Ieva, beautiful blonde, who was always begging me to have sex with her...to save her from the arranged marriage that was waiting for her back home. I never did...told over over and over that I was in love with some faraway girl named Clark. One morning after a banner party, I stood outside the McDonalds by the park entrance, right off the highway and made 600 dollars selling the Euro kids' passes to suspicious Garden State natives.

So anyway, it's not because of that. Although if I ever did see any of those guys again, I feel like we could laugh for weeks. Like the Saturday we all went to Home Depot, fucking drunk, to buy axes and chop down healthy trees. Fucking weeks. Anyway, I adore this movie because Kristen Stewart and Jesse Eisenberg are excellent and because the sum is a cut above what I expected. If you're going to watch the movie, don't watch this...but this is perfect...