Whip It:
One of my guilty pleasures a few years ago was Rollergirls on A&E. There is something about people trying to get a sport off the ground, a sport they clearly enjoy and they want to impart that joy to others. I got that same feeling watching the movie Leatherheads a while back about how professional football wasn’t originally taken seriously. Anyway, this movie really captures the sport well, and the way many people probably look at the girls who decide to pursue it. It was fun and funny, and even exciting during the bouts. Definitely a thumbs up from me.
The Invention of Lying:
If you’ve seen the trailer, you know the premise of the film is it takes place in a world where no one has ever told a lie. One thing to keep in mind before you go see it is that a lie isn’t just what most people consider lies, like telling your boss you are sick when you aren’t or pretending you have a job you don’t to impress a girl. Every fiction book ever written is a lie. Every exaggeration of the truth is a lie. So now, imagine a world without fiction, without storytelling as we know it, without any stretching of the truth. This is the world of The Invention of Lying. A world where people go to the movies to see a man in a comfy chair narrate the factual events of historical periods. I found this movie to be incredibly funny, and Ricky Gervais pulls off the whole thing really well. However, I can easily see how some people wouldn’t like it, especially religious folks, because, you see, unless you believe that the Bible is a 100% factually accurate depiction of events exactly as they happened, that make it fiction, and fiction is lying, and lying doesn’t exist until Ricky’s character invents it…
Zombieland:
The only movie opening this week I didn’t see a screening of. I had the opportunity (Thanks Greg and Neil!) but decided to see Whip It instead because, frankly, I’ll always pay to see zombies. And this is the latest George Romero “I want to make comments on society and don’t care if my movie is boring or stupid” zombie film. This is going to be funny, and disgusting, and a blast to watch, I can just tell. So this weekend, Zombieland will be earning my $10.