Zombieland is the most fun I’ve had in a movie theater this year since Star Trek.

It doesn’t aim particularly high. What it does do is aim to be funny, gross, and charming. And it succeeds time and again.

The movie stars Jesse Eisenberg as Columbus. A huge nerd who has outlined rules for himself for life in a Post-Apolcalyptic America populated predominantly by zombies. Following those rules has kept him alive. Eisenberg is fine in the part and probably has cemented for himself a role as the guy directors go to when Michael Cera turns them down.

Woody Harrelson hasn’t been this fun in forever. He plays Tallahassee, a guy who’s good at killing zombies and enjoys being creative about it.

Emma Stone picked another winning project after Superbad and Lucky Louie. Ok so maybe Lucky Louie didn’t turn out to be a winner, but I loved it. I can’t make any excuses for her for doing The Rocker though.

And the other guy steals the show.

If you’re interested, the zombies in this film are basically the result of a mutated case of Mad Cow disease and they sprint fast. Really fast.

The Goods: Live Hard, Sell Hard stars Jeremy Piven playing basically an Earth 2 version of Ari Gold named Don Ready who is a mercenary car salesman. Ready inhabits a world full of characters from a typical Will Ferrell movie in that they exist purely to try to make the audience laugh and in no way resemble real people. In fact, I thought The Goods felt like a movie written for Will Ferrell until he showed up in it. It turns out he produced the film which explains a lot.

The movie has many genuine laughs in it and is funnier than the commercials suggest. If you liked the lesser Will Ferrell flicks, this movie may be perfect for you. Personally as often as the movie made me laugh, it still felt hollow. It aspires to nothing beyond the quick laugh and that’s fine… But it’s just your typical low brow comedy. I found it amazing how many laughs they could milk from well placed F-bombs. The Goods is nowhere near as good as The Hangover or the first 90 minutes of Funny People.

Will Ferrell’s cameo would have stolen the movie had it been restricted to his first appearance, but he comes back later for a less funny scene or two.

The Goods comes in at just about 90 minutes long, but it feels like a long 90 minutes. I recommend you catch it on DVD if you think it might be your thing.

Ponyo is the latest animated film by Hayao Miyazaki to be released in the United States. As is typical of his films, Ponyo is more wildly imaginative and fantasy based than to which American audiences may be acustomed.

The story is basically about a magical fish with a human face who is found and be friended by five-year old Sosuke. The fish who comes to be known as Ponyo is the child of a human named Fujimoto, who has abandoned our world to live under water and protect the sea, and a powerful ocean spirit called Granmammare.

Ponyo, a child grappling with magical abilities that she is too young to comprehend or control, wills herself to become human so she can be with Sosuke whom she now loves. However, the use of such powerful magic has put the entire earth at risk in the pocess. Ponyo’s use of such strong magic has caused the seas to come alive and the powerful tides have pulled the moon onto a collision course with the earth.

Ponyo inhabits a world where no one questions two five-year olds driving a boat without adult supervision on a quest to find and potentially save Sosuke’s mother. Heck, it’s a world where Sosuke’s mother can leave the two children behind and believe they’ll be ok and we as an audience just roll with it.

The characters are well developed particularly Fujimoto as the stern but protective father of Ponyo and Sosuke’s lonely and burdened mother.

I particularly enjoyed the level of madness to the ideas that saturate the film, which reminded me of a story that could have been crafted by Grant Morrison. There are many laugh out loud moments and the animation is fantastic. I also found the orchestral music to be an interesting throwback to old Disney films.

The audience I saw the film with were mostly in their 20s, however, the few kids in the audience seemed to really enjoy the film’s humor and spectacle. I personally don’t believe parents will find too much to complain about in Ponyo in terms of content, though they may be mystified by the insanity of some elements of the story.

The film’s biggest flaw in my opinion is the ending. Now I understand how odd it seems as an adult to complain about the ending to a movie about a five-year old, but I found that after how great the rest of the film was, the ending felt sudden and anticlimactic. The story indicates that Sosuke must undergo a dangerous test to save both the world and Ponyo. However, the nature of that test is never as clear as it should have been.

Regardless, Ponyo is an exciting and entertaining ride even if the ultimate destination is a little disappointing.

Most of the movies that have come in the mail from Netflix recently don’t really merit a full post, so I’ll keep this brief to avoid spending any more time with these movies in my head.

Disaster Movie was just that.

Transporter 3 was no Crank 2.

The Curious Case of Benjamin Button would have been better as The Tragedy of Mearth from Earth.

My Best Friend’s Girl was like the story of The Three Bears: too good for Jason Biggs, not good enough for Kate Hudson, and just right for Dane Cook.

Big Stan must have failed to hold my attention since I’m watching it as I write this.

Caprica was worth writing more than one sentence about.

I spent the first half of Away We Go, trying to decide if the film is a chick flick. I think maybe its themes are too mature for the typical drag your guy to the theater kicking and screaming date movie, but it might qualify for the see it with your sisters while the guys go see Watchmen or Star Trek type chick flick.

The indie-feeling “dramedy” stars Maya Rudolph of Saturday Night Live fame and John Krasinski of the American version of the Office in the most serious roles I’ve ever seen either of them play. While the film features hysterically funny moments, I was impressed with the skill both actors displayed in performing the more dramatic material.

They play a couple expecting their first child who come to realize they have nothing tying them to their home and decide to hit the road in search of a new one. In reality, the couples’ tour coincidentally leads them to encounters with different styles of families as they try to figure out exactly what type of family they want to build for themselves.

On the way we get a funny and way over the top performance from the late Rachel Dawes, a terribly sad scene in a club in Canada, and a hysterical little kid discussing what he knows about babies. Actually, I may have been the only one laughing at the kid, but I thought he stole the movie.

In the end, the film made me laugh, made me feel selfish for like ten seconds, and made me want a kid for like half a second… That’s more than I can say for most flicks.