The Michigan Daily - michigandaily.com Monday, October 5, 2009 - 5A The Michigan Daily - michigandailycomMonday, October 5, 2009 - 5A A little buzz If you think this is creepy, wait until you see his balloon animals. Brain-eating brilliance Mixing humor with horror, 'Zombieland' proves its genre isn't dead By TIMOTHY RABB DailyArts Writer A note to the weak of heart: You may think that "Zombieland" is just typical slasher material, but rest assured that Hollywood has finally made a zom- Zombieland bie movie that reaches far beyond its sadistic fan base At Quality16 by taking advantage of our and Showcase society's love for the darker Columbia side of humor. Most viewers will inevitably love "Zom- bieland" because it simultaneously stirs in them the two emotions they most love to feel: amusement and disgust. The movie attempts sensory overload from its inception, lambasting the unsuspecting audience with images of zombie brutality to give the false impression that the next two hours will feature pervasive violence with limited character development. The intro- duction is a sort of informational montage on zombie evasion: The hopelessly awkward protagonist known only as Columbus (Jesse Eisenberg, "The Squid and the Whale") explains that, when the zombie infection began to spread, "the first ones to go were the fatties." Because of the inherent dangers in a zom- bie-tainted society, one must now retain an internal set of "rules" (a significant motif that reappears throughout the movie) pertaining to avoiding and, if necessary, exterminating zombies. Columbus spends the remainder of the film navigating the zombie-filled dystopia armed with only these rules and his hopes of finding his only remaining kin in central Ohio. But this solitary, gun-slinging hero couldn't properly entertain us without a support- ing cast of equally eccentric acquaintances. "Zombieland" also features Woody Harrelson ("Natural Born Killers") as Tallahassee, Emma Stone ("The House Bunny") as Wichita, Abi- gail Breslin ("Little Miss Sunshine") as Little Rock, as well as a hilarious cameo. Oh, and if you couldn't tell, the people in "Zombieland" only refer to one another by destination to avoid emotional attachment. How delightfully dehumanizing. The best part of the film is its ability to blend conflicting ideas into a single, balanced com- position. For example, "Zombieland" employs significant character development that can happily co-exist with the guilty pleasure of witnessing (literally) gut-wrenching acts of violence. It maintains the breakneck speed reminiscent of a classic shoot-'em-up arcade game without seeming confusing or poorly consolidated. It even manages significance without having to take itself seriously - this should come as a breath of fresh air to critics beleaguered by the steady stream of piss-poor films that think they've earned a right to exist just because they have a conscience. And it's prudent to mention that this work of genius is the directorial debut of Ruben Fleischer, who has scarcely any previous directorial experi- ence short of a few episodes of "Jimmy Kim- mel Live!" Congratulations are most definitely in order. Needless to say, this movie is worth its weight in U.S. currency - $25 million on its opening weekend, to be exact. The only possi- ble detractor from the fun is the inconsequen- tial nature of the movie's content; it's nearly impossible to make a masterpiece within the confines of the zombie genre. But the rest of the film is so fun that this minor problem is easy to overlook. Oh, and fuck clowns. A couple weeks ago, I got robbed. Apparently the homeless people here have "balls the size of watermelons," as the cop who came to my K house to inves- tigate the scene ( so eloquently phrased it. The scene consisted JOSHUA of the following: BYER my Hi-Fi (an extinct breed of high-fidelity iPod deck) and my iPod (80 gigabytes, lots of personality) were swiped out of my living room window while seven of my nine housemates were home. I really miss my Hi-Fi. It was a tad dilapidated - at a party, some rad-ass dudes decided to tamper with my shrewdly concocted party playlist and, in the process, anni- hilated that little metal thingy on the dock you jack your iPod into. So I had to prop my iPod up with a Balderdash box and sticky tack for it to even play in there. (Yes, the crookshanks swiped my Balder- dash box, too - bummer, right?) Regardless, that Hi-Fi had seri- ous nostalgic value, and losing it was not on my shortlist of things I wanted to happen. As far as my iPod, I shelled out for a new one in less than 24 hours. I am umbilically attached to my iPod. It's a little bit sickening. Sometimes I get really anxious that I care more about music than about people. ButI digress. Since my iPod got hijacked, I've been manically downloading all the noteworthy music that's come out this year. I get incredibly OCD about mak- ing my end-of-the-year list and have been compulsively tryingto listen to every 2009 album that could possibly hit my buzzer. And a clean-slate iPod was the perfect excuse for me to force-feed myself a stringent musical diet of only this year's releases. My witch-hunt for favorites has taken me to Metacritic. I'll scroll dog-mouthed down the screen, searching for albums with little white stars next to them (denoting universal acclaim). Pitchfork has also been a trusted source - I've brownnosed around the Internet for everything it brands as "Best New Music." And, although these methods have fished me a lot of quality hours of music listening, they feel a little bit formed to me - molded by something outside of my control. How much control do we really have over our own culture? For the most part, we're all funneling our knowledge of career-defining albums and breakout bands through these trusted sources that manufacture "buzz" for us: Metacritic; Pitchfork; Pandora. I mean, there's always the endless sea of blogs out there to ravage, but I spend an ungodly amount of time thinking about music as it is. And I, an unthinking robot receptacle of this bourgeoisie buzz, could make a blog myself, simply spitting back my own permutations of the com- FREE DAT COURSE FREE COURSe -For the first 20 enrolled 5%OFF COURSE - For the second 20 enroled DAT Course Value: $1399 5019-1 Starts Jarso9th MoWed 501"4 Starts Jans 9th Tueth modities I've been fed. I know this all sounds a little nihilistic and doomy - the furrow- browed child of information age angst - but, in reality, most of us are getting our information from mass amalgamators of the same source: everyone. How does buzz travel? Word of mouth. And who has word of mouth? Everyone. But then why do I feel like my word of mouth is so determined by these buzz bands that have conveniently popped up for me on the surface of the infor- mation superhighway? Now, I understand I'm whining about my lack of ability to create culture from the high and mighty throne of music columnist. I can mold your minds right now. I can tell you what to listen to. And the obvious place to start is with local music. I may be relying on these homogenizingbuzz-filters to be my ears in the rest of the coun- try, but the least I could do is go out and comb the streets of Ann Arbor for bands that deserve to blow up. And I probably should. But how much power do I actually have? I never really know these things. Let's say I randomly go out to the Bling Pig one night and see this groundbreaking local krautrock rock band nobody's ever heard of. Is anybody listening to me? I can devote an entire column to its consecration and balloon its buzz quotient in the city of Ann Arbor. But is the buzz fallout from The Michigan Daily expansive enough to set off the buzz detec- tors on a national cultural icon like Pitchfork? Is it mighty enough to be absorbed into such a prominent information body and shat out sub- jectively for mass consumption? No. And in all honesty, does that even matter? Whynot just embrace the infor- mation overload that blog-buzz culture has deluged us with? Sure, we're all jacking into similar sourc- es for upcoming album release dates and "Best New Music." But we've attached ourselves to these sources for a reason: They give us a lot of choices and they've shown as a lot of good music. It's intimidat- ing enough to rifle through all the music that pops up on the coun- try's infrastructural buzz meter. And, truly, the gratification I get from siftingthrough these break- out bands in my head with my biased, idiosyncratic rating system is purely narcissistic. Why sit there and worry about how much control I have over my own taste when it's so much more fun to converge with my brother robots and warmly accept the fact that Merriweather Post Pavilion is objectively the best album of the year? Seven out of nine housemates agree: Bayer's life sucks. Console him at jrbayer@mich.edu. NBC's new traumatic experience By ANT MITCHELL For the Daily Half a look at lives of medics and half a glance at fast-paced doc- toring,"Trauma" is unique among medical dramas Irau in that it's not set Mondays in an emergency at 9 p.m. room, hospital or NBC operating room. But aside from its setting, "Trauma" holds no other claim to originality and no strengths that sufficiently combat its shortcomings. The show begins one year ago, detailing the events of a helicop- ter-rescue disaster and the lives of the paramedics involved. From there, the show moves forward to the anniversary of the accident, during which a collage of charac- ters is introduced, with each one experiencing various personal problems including job pressure, marital indiscretions, returning from service overseas and coming back to the job after involuntary leave. Despite all this, most of the characters lack presence, and as such they're easily forgotten when they're not shown performing CPR. The opening catastrophe adds a fair amount of complexity to characters who already have mini- dramas playing out in both their jobs and daily lives. However, the special effects are barely better than a blast of orange and yellow light and pieces of strange black metal flailing about, all contained in the outline of an atom bomb. Better, to be sure - but only barely. In some cases, low-budget special effects wouldn't be a particular concern. "Trauma" is rooted in medicine and blood, as well as the material expense of multiple heli- copter flights, so it's almost par- donable that the fire and fury look cut and pasted. Unfortunately, a good chunk of the plot that follows is built around the resulting per- sonal baggage this single dramatic event creates, and the five minutes of unconvincing screaming used to depict it just doesn't do it justice. Further detracting from a show that might still have pulled a mea- Worse than 'a hospital visit. ger audience is the dialogue - at times far beyond corny and often uncomfortable to hear. From "He'll die, Joe" (dramatic music cue) right before a commercial break to sun- set-silhouetted confessions made next to ambulances, poor dialogue has "Trauma" cross-dressing from drama to soap and back in all-too- quick succession. One redeeming aspect of the show, though, is Reuben "Rabbit" Palchuck(CliffCurtis, "Push"),who was simultaneously entertaining and unconvincing. He is undoubt- edly the most eccentric character, seemingly a jerk one moment, but saving a child the next. And after cuttingoff someone's finger by driv- ing recklessly, he apologizes pro- fusely, ranting about his inability to die. Finally, he humbly serves as the counseling friend. Though his character is inherently not believ- able, he is just bipolar enough to claim curiosity among the general mediocrity. Basically, find something else productive to do on a Monday night. If that fails, channel flick, remaining on "Trauma" for no longer than five minutes. With any luck, no words will be spoken dur- ing that brief interval. 'My One and Only' matures into a terrible movie - SIU D 0 K U By EMILY BOUDREAU DailyArts Writer "My One and Only" is an improbably strange attempt to tell the story of a boy named George (Logan Lerman, "3:10 to Yuma") who comes of age while on a road trip with his mildly deranged mother My Onel (Renee Zellweger, "New in Town"). George spends most of his time pouring through At the State the pages of J.D. Salinger's Herrick "Catcher in the Rye," while director Richard Lon- craine ("Firewall") attempts to draw parallels between the boy and Holden Caulfield. But Locraine's extended comparisons are about as restrained as a beating over the head with the book itself. The movie tries to establish a balance between a story about growing up and a story about a dysfunctional family. However, the . coming-of-age story never really goes any- where and instead just subserves itself to the plotline of the film. There's a tiny blip of romance in George's life, but that's about it. "My One and Only" is stuck in the awkward phase of adolescence despite the fact that it strives for a more mature form of artiness. The only particularly amusing charac- ters are the polygamist Bill Massey (David Koechner, "Get Smart") and Robbie (Mark Rendall, "The Exploding Girl"), George's flamboyant brother who loves acting and wearing his mother's jewelry and clothes. Though they're empty caricatures, they pro- vide a few laughs on the hellish road trip. Bill Massey is particularly good when he talks to George about women - he tells him that they are either too hot or too cold, literally refer- ring to temperature rather than making some sort of innuendo. While the cast includes names like Kevin Bacon ("Frost/ Nixon"), Chris North ("Sex and the City: The Movie") and Eric McCor- mack ("Will and Grace"), these stars don't get a chance to stand out, instead falling into boring stereotypes. Bacon is particularly dull as father Dan Deveraux, who fails to be more than a womanizer who undergoes a miracu- lous and artificial change of heart. Zellweger isn't at her best either as she tries to portray a terrible mother attempting to be clever, ele- gant and vivacious. Instead, she comes across as washed-out and desperate. Zellweger's character might also insult some women. She tries to get married to just about any wealthy man she meets and exploits her wannabe suitors shamelessly. She supposedly learns she can get along without a man in her life, but doesn't realize it soon enough. It seems like she comes to this conclusion merely because she either gives up trying or because she gets too old to attract anyone wealthy enough. Worst of all, the ending is a contrived, everyone-lives-happily-ever-after affair. The problem here is that it's impossible to like any of the characters enough to really care wheth- er or not they end up happy. In fact, Robbie, A complete waste of a talented cast. the only character really worth caring about (if only for his snide remarks) gets written off as a side note. For the most part, the charac- ters don't grow or change. The only difference is that George decides his mom is tolerable, and she decides she doesn't need a husband. Of course, these conclusions make their time spent on the road meeting polygamists and grumpy aunts a complete waste of time.