Rating 5 of 7: Excellent
Chef Machiavelli tossed the 4-iron to me. I restrained from yelling "four!" as I whacked the nasty, multi-legged, brown fur-ball scuttling toward me, up and over the pool table. Times like this made me wish I had kept up my golf lessons. Not too shabby, though: I hooked the little bugger to the right. It hit the Yule marble fireplace mantel with a splat, leaving a gooey green stain. Glenor will certainly not like that. I turned my attention to the dozen of so other nasties climbing up Chef Machiavelli's legs, but he signaled he didn’t need my help. What a trooper.
Lawn Gisland, family friend and rodeo star attraction for the Smith and Walloo Brothers Circus, was showing off by improvising a coil of clothes line into a lariat and lassoing the bigger bugs. At least I think they were bugs. What he missed with the lariat he stomped hard with his Nocona boot heels. If he said "little-doggy" one more time as he threw the lasso, or "tarnation" every time he stomped, I was going to whomp him good myself. There are just so many "little-doggies" and "tarnations" a city-slicker like me can take in a day, if you know what I mean.
I took another swing while Chef Machiavelli bowled a 7-10 split on a handful of fur-balls. Surprisingly, they rolled very well. His usually immaculate white chef's uniform was stained green, and bits of fuzzy hair and goo stuck on his shoulders, looking like weird epaulets. That and his crushed-in Chef's hat made him look quite the worse for wear. I turned to Lawn to see if he needed my help. He was swinging a pool cue like a stick-ball bat sending toothy fur-balls flying in all directions. One clamped tight onto the end of it. Always the showman, he did a neat combination kick shot, squishing the bugger and pocketing the nine-ball at the same time, and then returned to batting away the rest of the competition. Within five minutes we had the situation under control and a hell of a mess to clean up. But that could wait. The three of us collapsed onto the wrap-around leather sofa to catch our breadths.
It started when we began bowling in the mansion's recreation room. Lawn needs a bowling ball that fits his massive left hand--and its missing middle finger--so the ones we normally have on display don’t fit. We did have one custom made for him, but since he so seldom wants to bowl we keep it with the other more customized--hence little used--bowling balls in the second play-accessories storage closet. So we walked into the closet looking for his bowling ball. It wasn’t my fault I dropped it—it’s heavy, really heavy--on his foot. Luckily his boots were hard leather, but he still jumped high, bumping a low shelf. On it were more golf balls than we would ever, ever, need, some very old gut-string tennis rackets we stopped using, fishing tackle we never use, three-hundred and forty-eight bright orange ping pong balls (I know because I counted them later when I picked every single one of them up), and all the Halloween candy Zimba's been snatching and hiding from me and Zombos over the years. She insists on giving out toothbrushes and floss packs instead of sugary-treats for the kids, which always leads to major problems for Zombos and me.
In back of the shelf was a hole the size of Lawn's fist, and behind the hole were these hairy, candy-gorged fiends grown fat on years and years worth of Hershey bars, M&M's, maple candy corn (my favorite), Reese's Pieces, Milky Way Bars, and every other deep dark sinfully-rich, cavity-prone delight imaginable worth cramming into a trick or treat bag. The bugs followed the spilled candy onto the floor, then followed us out the door as fast as we could run. In one of those annoying turn of events that happen every now and then, Chef Machiavelli was bent over, serving his sugary sweet maple-toffee, dark apple cider, with melted caramel and toasted almonds, when we crashed into him, spilling it all over us and the floor. That overpowering sweet smell of sugary nirvana sent the buggers into a feeding frenzy.
"Say, hot-doggie!" said Lawn, scooping up a Twinkie from the candy assortment strewn across the floor. Zimba had banned those from the pantry, too. "All this sweetness has me hankerin' for something sweet." He unwrapped it.
"Are you crazy?" I said. Chef Machiavelli said something to the same effect in Italian, I think. The two of us looked at Lawn. "That's probably been in that closet for ages! It's not fresh." Chef Machiavelli nodded in agreement. Lawn ignored us and ate the Twinkie.
"Tarnation, it's a darn-tootin' Twinkie," he said, downing the golden spongy cake in one bite. "Don't get your boots caught in the stirrups, they last forever." He licked his fingers. "Everybody knows that."
He did have a point.
We looked at the mess all around us.
"Well," I summed up, "at least they weren't zombies." Lawn and Chef Machiavelli nodded in agreement.
"I'd miss Twinkies in a zombie apocalypse," added Lawn.
"Me, too," I said. Being eaten alive is bad enough, but no Twinkies? That's really hell on earth for sure.
Tallahassee (Woody Harrelson) won me over immediately. Traveling a landscape overrun with zombies--that have really let themselves go as he puts it--his main goal, the one that keeps him alive and psyched for survival, is finding the last fresh Twinkie. Hostess Sno Balls just don’t do it for him. He wants the golden, creme-filled, real deal. His quest provides one of the lighter themes in Zombieland, an apocalypse romp that brings together four survivors, each psyched for survival by formulating his and her own rules for success in a really down economy of the undead.
Columbus (Jesse Eisenberg) has a laundry list of rules: there’s one designed to keep his stamina up (Rule 1: cardio to outrun zombies); another to be wary of bathrooms (Rule 3: they know you are vulnerable when on the potty); and one to make dead sure the undead are really dead (Rule 2: do a double-tap with bullets to the head every time). His rules have kept him alive after a contaminated burger kicks-off the rise of the undead. He tells us how the girl next door, the one he had a crush on, introduces him to the dire situation. Up until then he was holed-up in his apartment eating pizza, drinking Code Red Mountain Dew, and playing World of Warcraft non-stop. So rules for staying alive come naturally for him: he just needed to switch his mindset from trolls to zombies.
Tallahassee and Columbus are an unlikely pairing. When they meet--Columbus is trying to get back home, and Tallahassee is trying to find Twinkies--they have little in common; Tallahassee is more of a redneck survivalist, cool to the touch and more loose in dealing with the walking dead, while Columbus is more of a rational, follow the rules or be dead kind of person. Tallahassee also really hates zombies. Columbus is non-committal; he just wants to get home to his parents. Driving down the highway, they stop to watch a zombie crack the bones and scoop up the intestines of one unlucky motorist. Tallahassee makes a point of opening his car door as he drives past to knock over the zombie. Columbus would have gone around and avoided it.
The quest for the last Twinkie brings them to a supermarket where they meet Wichita (Emma Stone) and Little Rock (Abigail Breslin), two sisters, the older one looking out for the younger one. They’re heading to Pacific Playland where there are no zombies but lots of fun rides. No one uses their real name. The only important thing is to not get attached--keep on moving--do not make friends. Familiarity and togetherness are for zombies, not survivors. The boys and girls go their separate ways.
They meet again on the highway and this time they stay together. Stopping at the Kemo Sabe trading post, they first clear the place of zombies and then browse the merchandise. And then trash the place realizing it all doesn’t matter. Back on the road, Tallahassee can’t believe Little Rock doesn’t know who Willie Nelson is, and Columbus and Wichita are beginning to like each other, which goes against their own hard and fast rules.
Using a homes-of-the-movie-stars map they decide to hold up in a Beverly Hills mansion. The one they pick, with its well-known owner still in residence, provides the silliest fun you will ever have in a zombie movie. When Columbus and Wichita get too close for comfort, Wichita takes Little Rock and heads to zombie-free Pacific Playland. Or Zombie free until they turned on the rides and lights and sounds anyway. One of the rides provides momentary safety, but not for long.
Zombieland is a movie filled with clown and Charlie Chaplin zombies and big gun-toting survivors. It takes an NRA, redneck approach to a problem of apocalyptic proportions, and has fun doing it. After watching so many seriously undead in so many serious zombie movies, it’s refreshing to see an old-fashioned shoot ‘em up, where the bullets outnumber the zombies and the survivors are so likable I did not want any one of them to get bitten or eaten because that would spoil the fun. Harrelson is a natural zombie-hunter and very believable when handling high-impact automatic weaponry. I certainly would want him by my side when the zombies come: I’d be desparately searching for Twinkies, too.
A light-hearted gory romp with its brief serious moments makes Zombieland a refreshing bullets and zombies break from the usually more depressing fare. This and Shaun of the Dead would make a solid double bill viewing session on Halloween night.
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