You ever see one of those stupid online practical jokes where you're conned into taking some sort of internet quiz? The questions are really intriguing, and you find yourself studying them from every possible mental angle, knowing there's a catch involved somewhere, a trick that's going to wind up making you look stupid in the end? And you do look stupid, because out of nowhere, the screen cuts to someone screaming into a camera , and it startles the shit out of you so you recoil from the computer with a yelp and one of those sheepish "oh-har-dee-f*cking-har-har-you-got-me" kind of laughs.

That's about what I felt like walking out of PARANORMAL ACTIVITY tonight. Not that I didn't enjoy it. I mean, come on, who doesn't love a scary movie for their Halloween treat? And I had a sneaky suspicion that this movie couldn't possibly live up to the hype that's been building around it for the last two years, the sort of hype proclaiming it one of the scariest movies of all time, for example.

As a disclaimer, I scare pretty easily. And when it comes to movies, I enjoy a good scare. But I can count on one hand the number of honest-to-God good scary movies I've ever seen. Not that there aren't others that have scared me. Because there are -- shitloads of them that have scared the shit out of me. But there are very few that have the emotional resonance, that lingering scared-shitless impact that say, The Exorcist or The Blair Witch Project have.

And alas, Paranormal Activity falls equally short in this respect. Which brings me to the rest of my review...

10 Word Review: Blair Witch + The Exorcist + Mad About You + Ghosthunters = Paranormal Activity

Low-Down Review: Katie and Micah (pronounced MEE-kah) are Happy Young Couple living in San Diego. He's a day trader, she's a college student working toward an English degree. She's brushes her teeth with a borderline religious fanaticism. He has a nice house with big screen TV, leather sofas, fancy laptop and granite countertops. She has aspirations of becoming a teacher one day. They're "engaged to be engaged," as Micah puts it. You get the picture yet? Good.

Turns out there's a dark side to this otherwise sunny scenario, one the viewer is thrust into without much preamble in the movie. (Don't worry. You're soon brought up to speed on the pertinent back story details...much to the film's detriment.) Micah has bought a very expensive, top of the line video camera. Why? Because there have been some spooky happenings afoot in their otherwise happy home and he means to capture all the paranormal goodness on film.

Thus, we come to learn that perky, cute, tooth-brushing fanatic Katie has been tormented periodically throughout her life by poltergeist activity. It started when she was eight, and every few years or so, manifests itself anew. She has called in a psychic who tells her it's possibly a demonic entity fixated on her. Micah is naturally skeptical of all of this paranormal mumbo jumbo, but happy for an excuse to go and drop a bunch of money on new electronic gadgets and gizmos. He remains skeptical for awhile, until his video equipment begins to show strange goings-on during the night as they sleep. Katie gets more and more scared as these occurrences seem to grow in both intensity and animosity toward her. Micah gets more and more pissed off.

He buys a Ouija board, but this only makes the entity angry. And pulls in a completely unnecessary, convoluting plot point that could have otherwise completely been omitted. Oh, and of course, he does this against the specific advice from the psychic, who advises them not to try and communicate with the entity and to avoid pissing it off.

Of course, since that advice comes at the beginning of the flick, you know Micah spends every waking moment for the rest of the film doing precisely this. But in the end, you may ask, is it scary?

My Two-Cents Worth: I really wanted to like this movie. I love the embedded POV format introduced years ago in The Blair Witch Project and utilized with mixed results ever since in films like Quarantine and Cloverfield. What made Blair Witch so unique was not only this novel storytelling technique, but the fact that the actors completely improvised their dialogue. They were given a rough story outline and allowed to run with it. The backstory in Blair Witch was also relatively simple, if not ambiguous, giving the actors a great deal of freedom in their performances. They weren't bogged down trying to keep tiny details straight and could focus solely on reacting to the increasingly bizarre and frightening circumstances unfolding around them.

Paranormal Activity lacks this spontaneity, even though it utilizes the same you-are-there-in-the-room-with-the-cast cinematography. For this, I blame the writers. This was a simple enough premise that a complicated backstory was not needed. At all. But they go into it not once, not twice, but multiple times, in unnecessary and lengthy detail -- over and over, ad nauseum, about Katie being tracked by this thing since childhood. OK, we get it. She was eight years old, her house burned down. No one knows why, but she thinks this thing is to blame. It's followed her ever since. Yada-yada-yada.

Knowing all of this doesn't add to the atmosphere of the film. In fact, to me, it took away from it. Because what was scariest about Blair Witch was the ambiguity of it all. There was more than one way to interpret much of what happened to the characters. Were they the victims of supernatural terrorizing, or were they just lost in the woods? There were a host of other options running the gamut in between, and it was the not knowing that gave Blair Witch its emotional punch.

Like Blair Witch, Paranormal Activity remembers that what's left to the audience's imagination on screen is often far more terrifying than blood and guts and gratuitous, torture-porn violence. A darting shadow, mysterious footprints, bumps and bangs from in the night -- all used to frightening effect. To me, the scariest scenes in Paranormal Activity are when Katie rises from her bed in the night and just stands there beside it, unmoving, while the digital time display in the corner races ahead seconds, minutes, hours. And in the morning, she has no memory of doing this.

It's too bad Paranormal Activity didn't trust its audience to fill in the story blanks, to use our imaginations to come up with the why's and wherefor's with regards to the haunting in the film. Instead, it sort of pushes our noses into it, like a puppy who's crapped on the carpet and needs to have its mess pointed out to it. Even the final scene, the one in which everyone in the audience seems to jump, jerk, squeal or cry out, didn't ring true to me or my husband. Because it felt like one of those internet jokes I described above. Because it felt like the filmmakers were saying, "Here. You're too stupid to put two and two together and imagine what sort of horrific thing might have just happened out of camera-shot. So we'll show you."

Blair Witch trusted us to our imaginations, and remembered that what we don't see or know is far scarier than anything they could show us. That closing scene in the movie remains, for me, one of the scariest f*cking movie scenes ever. Because we don't know what happens. And what we're shown is completely ambiguous. And it scares the shit out of me every time I see it.

In summary, Paranormal Activity is a fun popcorn/date kind of flick, but borrows too much from The Exorcist as far as storyline and The Blair Witch Project as far as storytelling. It also borrows from SyFy's TV series Ghosthunters in terms of the technology used to keep tabs on their nocturnal visitor, and from the sitcom Mad About You in terms of the playful, light-romantic-comedic banter between Micah and Katie. Alas, you may have more fun watching any of these aforementioned.

Grade: C

Where You're Likely to Find It: Paranormal Activity is now playing in theaters nationwide.

Filed under the annals of I-Want-The-Last-Two-Hours-of-My-Life-Back comes this review for PREMONITION, starring Sandra Bullock and Julian McMahon, which I watched last night on Oxygen.

10 Word Review: Sandra Bullock's career downslide into toilet of obscurity begins here.

Low-Down Review: Linda Hanson (Bullock) and her DH, Jim (McMahon), have a happy life. Two great kids. Nice big house. Everything is hunky dory until one morning, Linda comes back from jogging to find a puzzling message from Jim on her answering machine that seems apropos of nothing. Shortly after that, a police officer arrives on her doorstep to tell her Jim has been killed in a car accident. In a state of shock, Linda must break the news to her children, then try to pick up the pieces of her newly broken life. Except that the next morning, when she wakes up, Jim is alive, downstairs in her kitchen drinking coffee and catching up on the sports scores on TV like nothing has happened. And to everyone else in the world but Linda, nothing apparently has. She's confused but decides the whole Jim-is-dead thing was a dream. Until the next day, when she wakes up and he's dead again. Hijinks ensue.

My Two-Cents Worth: This story is convoluted but still original enough to have piqued my interest. Although the title of this flick would (blatantly) suggest otherwise, Linda is apparently NOT having some kind of premonition. Rather, she's living her days out of order, like she's entered some kind of personal time warping worm hole. Everything that transpires works in reverse, a sort of self-fulfilling prophecy shown in rewind. For example, she finds a bottle of Lithium prescribed to her that she's never seen before, from a doctor she's never heard of, and when she goes to the phone book to look him up, she finds that page has been torn out, then crumpled and thrown into a nearby waste can. Two days later in the Linda-Space-Time-Contiuum, she herself goes to this doctor and obtains the medication, after she herself rips the page out of the phone book and throws it away.

At another point, she wakes up and her oldest daughter has cuts all over her face, but neither Linda nor the girl seem to know where they've come from. A day or two later in the Linda-sphere, her daughter runs through a plate glass window because Linda cleaned it with Windex and the kid didn't realize it was closed, just like in the TV commercials. OK. Not really. But she does run through a plate glass window, thus causing the cuts to her face.

Convinced she's going crazy, but unwilling to listen to the psychiatrist who suggests she might be and thus gives her lithium (because as you know, lithium is one of those medications that any old doctor will just zip out a 'scrip for on your initial consultation, without really getting to know anything about you, your medical history, your psychological background and all that), Linda instead goes to that old classic movie stand-by -- her Parish Priest. Because in the movies, priests know everything when it comes to the paranormal. Got a ghost in your house? See your Parish Priest. Demons possessing your kids? See your Parish Priest. Having weird, paranoid delusions that your husband's going to die in a fiery car crash? You guessed it -- see your Parish Priest.

It's a little known fact that part of the indoctrination into the Roman Catholic Priesthood is a pretty extensive course on these sorts of things. And, as demonstrated in this movie, every priest keeps a secret library full of books on the subject, so when you come in with your paranormal problem, as Linda does, then the priest can just whip out a helpful tome -- already clearly marked by post-it note bookmarks so his talking points are ready to go. Please note that, as in this movie, it's always helpful if you are a Once Devout Catholic Who Has Now Gone Astray when you seek a priest's advice or help with the paranormal. Because chances are, the answer is going to be some variation on the You Must Find Your Faith Again Although in A Non-Threatening, Non-Ideological, Non-Denominationally Specific Fashion. Again, as in this movie.

Despite its contrivances and convolutions, this movie might not have been so bad, a C at best, had it not been for the ending, which tries to be a clever little "gotcha" twist, but winds up pissing the viewer off. Actually there's supposed to be TWO twists. The first pisses you off so much you don't even offer the obligatory "Awwwwww" at the second one the filmmakers were clearly going for.

Without Bullock and McMahon signing onto this mess, I'm willing to bet it would have wound up a movie-of-the-week on Lifetime starring Tori Spelling.

Sandra Bullock isn't the cute and likable plucky heroines from Speed or Miss Congeniality here, and while she's not supposed to be, this remains a prime example of why she was cast in those roles. That's where her range seems to lie. Why people keep casting her in these melodramatic roles, or worse -- the quirky pseudo-comic, pseudo-crazy girl roles she's also been landing of late -- is a mystery to me. She doesn't come across as particularly sympathetic in this film. In some scenes, she's so somber and stoic, she may as well have been cut out of cardboard. In others, she's so manic and hyper, it's grating, not ingratiating. Granted, the circumstances of her character call for shock or frenzy, but with Bullock, it just doesn't feel right. It didn't work. And she never exudes that same sweet maternal charm that worked so well for her in Hope Floats. Which for the record, is one of my favorite sappy happy love movies.

Julian McMahon is equally miscast. First, I couldn't get past whispering to my husband every time he came on screen, "Oo, look it's Dr. Doom!" Second of all, McMahon's a handsome guy, but not in the heroic, good-guy kind of way. He's good as Dr. Doom because he has smarmy good looks that exude asshole-ness. He's a good villain because there's something about him that just oozes arrogant villainy. Thus, casting him in a role that's presented as ambiguous in places, and out and out sappy, Kodak-moment Dear Husband/Perfect Daddy the next didn't fly with me. Because he just doesn't look like the part.

As a footnote, I've learned there is an alternate ending for this movie, one that is more open ended and apparently included on the DVD version. If it's true, from what I've read of it, that ending alone would have raised the grade of this movie up to a C. Because despite the flaws in its characterizations and plot, it's really the ending of Premonition that ultimately tanks it.

Grade: D

Where You're Likely to Find It: It'll probably air again on Oxygen soon. It's also available for rental. But I'd spend the money and get Hope Floats, instead.

Thank God for the Oxygen network, otherwise I would have altogether forgotten to share my two-cents about yet another movie playing pretty much ad nauseum on regular cable -- Pride and Prejudice. While many film adaptations of Jane Austen's novel have been made over the years, I'm talking about the one from 2005 starring Keira Knightley. I've seen it either in whole or through bits and pieces several times now on Oxygen. Enough so that when my wee Sweet One, the Girl, hears the music from the ball scenes, she comes running now because she thinks all of the ladies in their long gowns are princesses, like in her Disney movies. And like in those Disney movies, where true love conquers all, the hero gets the girl and everyone lives happily ever after, so, too, does Pride and Prejudice have a fairy tale ending.

And so, because I like this new film review format I introduced in my previous post and think I'll stick with it for awhile, let me, with no further ado, present my low-down review on Pride and Prejudice.

Pride and Prejudice, starring Keira Knightley

10 Word Review: One of the best romances and movies of all time.

Low Down Review: I'm not about to bore you with my personal summarization of this well-known tale. However, I'm not above copying someone else's personal summarization of it, and so here you go, from IMDB: "This tale of love and values unfolds in the class-conscious England of the late 18th century. The five Bennet sisters - including strong-willed Elizabeth and young Lydia - have been raised by their mother with one purpose in life: finding a husband. When a wealthy bachelor takes up residence in a nearby mansion, the Bennets are abuzz. Amongst the man's sophisticated circle of friends, surely there will be no shortage of suitors for the Bennet sisters. But when Elizabeth meets up with the handsome and - it would seem - snobbish Mr. Darcy, the battle of the sexes is joined."

My Two-Cents Worth: Keira Knightley has always been one of those people I love to hate. I loved her in Bend It Like Beckham, which I only watched because I loved her in the original Pirates of the Caribbean, but then she became the next "it" girl in Hollywood and as a result became grossly overexposed -- both on film and in flesh, since she seemingly became too thin to be remotely healthy. I thought she could act but she annoyed me just the same and with her media attention, it was hard to ignore her celebrity status and become emotionally invested in her characters. Then, of course, the last two Pirates movies totally sucked donkey balls, so I lost even this fledgling amount of respect for her.

But she is absolutely radiant in P&P. As Lizzy, Knightley is luminous, stealing every scene she's in with her preternaturally large and wondrously expressive eyes, her wry smile, her sideways glances and murmured witticisms. She not only portrays Lizzy, but inhabits her, becomes her in the eyes and hearts of the audience, and we're captivated by her almost from the first moment she comes onto the screen.

And speaking of eyes, her co-star, Matthew McFaddyan, who plays Mister Darcy, has 'em in spades. The first couple of scenes in which I saw him in this role, I found him unattractive. But I think this is more due to McFaddyan's accurate portrayal of the character rather than any physical shortcoming on his part. Darcy is stand-offish in the beginning, a bit of a jerk, but as the movie progresses and his character develops, both he and McFaddyan exude an undeniable and irresistable charisma, charm and appeal. To paraphrase Paris Hilton, he's hot. And he has great eyes. In more than one scene, McFaddyan's eyes do all the talking, conveying Darcy's myriad of conflicting emotions, even when his lines of dialogue do not. Yeah, they could've cast a more conventional Hollywood hunk in this, the premier romantic lead, but I doubt anyone could have matched McFaddyan in terms of the emotional intensity he brings to the role. And the attraction and subsequent sexual tension that develops and intensifies on screen between his Darcy and Knightley's Lizzy is absolutely palpable and electrifying.

More casting kudos include Donald Sutherland, fantastic in his turn as Lizzy's bewildered, beleaguered father. Simon Woods as Darcy's friend and would-be suitor to Lizzy's sister, Mister Bingley, also does a terrific job, drawing emotional investment from viewers into his character's own developing love story.

Rupert Friend as Mister Wickham is pretty much vacuous eye candy in a uniform, which is pretty much what Mister Wickham is supposed to be. (And is it just me or does he look a hell of a lot like Orlando Bloom? You be the judge.)

And Tom Hollander just about steals the show as the bumbling, prudish Mister Collins, Lizzy's cousin and one-time admirer. You might recognize him from the last Pirates of the Caribbean movie as Bennett, the conniving, weasly bad guy. In that, he did good with the load of crap he was given, but in this, he's given great material and he makes the absolute most of it.

This is the sort of movie you laugh through, cry in and fall in love with. It has amazing roots, of course, in Austen's book. But when combined with an award-caliber screenplay, lush scenery and set designs, lighting that's employed to evoke mood as well as setting, and cinematography that makes you feel, at times, as though you're watching a portrait or classical painting come to life, it's so beautiful, you have yourself a rare and phenomenal film-going treat.

Grade: A

Where You're Likely to Find It: If it's not playing again anytime soon on Oxygen, it's well worth a trip to the video store to rent it. Make your man watch it, too. Even if he whines. Promise him he'll get some if he does, then snuggle up to him and picture him in Darcy's magnificent great coat, rain-soaked and saying how you have bewitched him. Meow!

Even though I can't hit the theater as much as I may like to (and for the record, I once dreamed of living in a movie theater, which should give an idea of how much I'd like to be at one), and am too damn cheap to pay for satellite or premium cable channels, I've caught a couple of movies on regular old cable TV lately that I enjoyed. At least enough to offer a quick-and-dirty low down on each of them.

Enough, starring Jennifer Lopez

10 Word Review: J.Lo learns Krav Maga and beats shit out of abusive ex. (Yeah, that's 11 words. I know. It's my blog - shut up.)

Low Down Review: Greasy spoon waitress Slim (Lopez) falls for with smarmy, wealthy Mitch (Billy Campbell), who woos, wins and weds her. All goes saccharine-vomit sweet for about a year, then after their daughter is born, she catches him cheating on her and he beats her up. Slowly it dawns on Slim that her Prince Charming may be anything but. And as a very wealthy and influential entrepreneur, he has the power and ability to make her life miserable. Which he proceeds to do. So she runs away, taking their daughter with her, but Mitch tracks her at every turn. Realizing she has no other choice but to defend herself, Slim takes up Krav Maga, the martial arts style used by the Israeli army. She then proceeds to kick Mitch's ass.

My Two-Cents Worth: The disastrous past of "Bennifer" and Gigli aside, I like Jennifer Lopez. Yeah, Enough is a rehashing of flicks you've seen before -- Sleeping with the Enemy with Julia Roberts comes most immediately to mind -- but in this one, the heroine not only eventually stands up for herself, she comes out swinging. Literally. And it actually answers the nagging question of where the hell co-star Juliette Lewis has been lately, and if she's still earning a SAG card.

Lopez is small enough in stature, particularly when paired with the towering Campbell, and able to convey both fright and vulnerability through her large, dark eyes so well, that you empathize very powerfully with her character's plight. And cheer yourself hoarse when she gets her revenge. If it wasn't $90 a month with a minimum 6-month commitment to study Krav Maga at the only officially sanctioned instruction center in my area, man, I would so be there. Because Lopez makes it look cool as hell.

Grade: C+

Where You're Likely to Find It: Oxygen has been playing this frequently over the last month. I've seen it at least three times, most recently as of last night.

The Dark, starring Maria Bello and Sean Bean

10 Word Review: Dysfunctional family gets even less functional in spooky Welsh house.

Low Down Review: Whiny, selfish, unlikable mother Adele (Bello) and whiny, selfish, unlikable adolescent daughter Sarah (Sophie Stuckey) hit the gloomy grey coast of Wales to take up residence with Sarah's father, Adele's estranged husband (Bean). They learn about a creepy cult of religious fanatics who had thrown themselves to their deaths from the nearby steep cliffs some fifty years earlier. In a similarly tragic event, Sarah falls into the sea and is presumed dead. At least by everyone but Adele, who begins to believe she can hear Sarah calling out to her in the house. The appearance of a mysterious girl named Ebril, who Adele suspects is really the daughter of the preacher who'd driven the fanatic cultists to their deaths decades earlier, confirms to Adele that something fishy is afoot. You see, Ebril had been dead for more than 50 years. The more Adele learns about the ancient Celtic myth of Annwyn, a purgatory-like realm of the dead, the more she becomes convinced that Sarah is trapped there, her body and soul traded for that of Ebril -- and only Adele can free her.

My Two-Cents Worth: Atmospheric and creepy, the sweeping, shadowy scenery in this film is as much a character within the story as Adele, James, Sarah or Ebril. I've learned it was actually filmed on the Isle of Wight south of England, not Wales, but it still presents a stark and isolated landscape, gothic enough to be the perfect setting for a spooky story. Unfortunately for everyone involved (but perhaps none so much as Simon Maginn, the author upon whose book, Sheep, this film is loosely based), that spookiness falls flat in the end. Like too many other horror movies of this vein, it tries too hard to explain too much and by doing so, becomes convoluted, confusing and contradictory. I spent the last quarter of the movie pretty much going, "Uh, WTF?" which is disappointing, because I really enjoyed the first 3/4 of it.

Abigail Stone, who plays Ebril, is a bright spot in an otherwise lackluster ensemble, and it's a shame to learn upon searching for her on the International Movie Database site that she hasn't acted in anything since this. She was a local schoolgirl cast for the role, which is pretty cool. Even cooler is that she has a thread on her IMDB page where fans can actually post messages and she'll respond. Ya ain't gonna see too many actors today doing that, I'm willing to bet.

Sean Bean is another good casting choice, but Bean's one of those talented character actors who, like John Leguizamo, can not only pretty much play any role, but can change his entire physical appearance, nearly to the point of being unrecognizable, to fill a particular casting type. If you know Bean only as Boromir from the Lord of the Rings movies or the bad guy from National Treasure, first of all -- shame on you. Second of all, you may not recognize him at first in this, because he's leaner in this role, the stress his character feels at his failing relationship with his wife and daughter, then his subsequent grief at the loss of said daughter, is pretty much cut into the gaunt lines and haggard shadows in his face.

Grade: C

Where You're Likely to Find It: SyFy had it on last weekend, but who knows when it will regurgitate it into its line up again. If it helps, they also showed the gloriously abysmal Blood Rayne that same day. Quite possibly the worst movie ever made, I'd last seen it when the channel went by Sci Fi, so give it a few months and The Dark might pop up again. Or just go rent it at your local Blockbuster. Or order it through Netflix.

And now, for your reading enjoyment, a first in all of the seven years I've been blogging -- I have invited a guest blogger to share a movie review! Special thanks to my friend from work, Shane Scanlan.

Yes, it's not bad enough that I bother Shane on any given weekday with stupid questions about editorial content for our company's electronic newsletters or whether or not we can add yet another page to our existing company website. Now I have to bother him after hours, too, to write up an op-ed piece for your rabid consumption, his take on Zombieland.

Lucky for me -- and you -- he agreed willingly, so hey, here goes:

Zombieland is a romantic comedy with just a hint of The Wizard of Oz. Oh yeah and gross zombies who are gonna kill ya. But I’m getting ahead of myself. To begin with, I have to tell you the biggest but fortunately the only disappointment of this film. Zombieland’s so-called zombies are not not classic Romero style zombies. George A. Romero's 1968 film, Night of the Living Dead forever defined a zombie in horror movies as a slow-moving, mindless, reanimated corpse. They are capable of killing and/or turning humans into other zombies. Taken to it’s logical conclusion, the Romero zombie usually affects or at least threatens a zombie apocalypse that causes a breakdown in civilized society. Ironically, the word “zombie” was never used in Romero’s first zombie movie, Night. Nonetheless, if you say “Romero zombie” to any self-described horror fan they will connect the word to the 1968 movie.

Although they missed the marked technically Zombieland's ghouls are not re-animated dead but rather live humans infected with an awful, fucked up, virus that causes extreme, violent, hateful — and most importantly — cannibalistic behaviors. The two great things they share with the classic Romero zombies besides eating people: 1.) They are apparently devoid of a human soul. 2.) And they have caused a zombie apocalypse. Throw in a group of crazy humans running around trying not to die and you have a recipe for fun! This movie assumes two things about its audience: you don't mind gore and you're intelligent enough to recognize smart humor and irony.

Throughout the film, the viewpoint character known to us only as Columbus, Ohio (played by Jesse Eisenberg) takes us through his rules for surviving Zombieland. Eisenberg’s acting is understated yet heartfelt. From this list of rules comes a lot of the movie’s comedy, drama and fun. In an effort to not ruin jokes and plot twists I’ll avoid listing the rules here. However, I will say that this format allows for just enough campiness in between the gory violence to make this a delightfully horrific movie.

Columbus is one of only a very few who are surviving in a post-apocalyptic world. He is an unlikely hero. Before patient zero jacked up everybody’s shit, he was a neurotic loner who divided his time between playing video games and worrying needlessly. Now the poor bastard has real reason to worry.

Columbus meets Tallahassee played by Woody Harrelson or as I like to think of him, Woody from Cheers — especially when he goes around killing in movies. It makes me giggle. Tallahassee is not only great at killing, he takes particular joy in being creative about it. For example, rather than just using his shotgun to blow off all their heads, he might decapitate the zombies with hedge clippers. My father is a career counselor. He says if you have a job you enjoy you’ll never work again. Woody from Cheers knows this better than anyone. At one point Tallahassee says while lifting two chainsaws in the air, “I’m in the ass kickin’ business and business is good!” A line that’s not exactly original, but well delivered.

Besides being a neurotic loser or a bat-shit-crazy killer, another way to stay alive in Zombieland is to scheme, hustle and steal. Enter more unlikely survivors: Little Rock (Abigail Breslin — you'll remember her from Little Miss Sunshine) and Wichita (Emma Stone — you might not remember her from Superbad).

Our fearless foursome go out on a road trip across Zombieland in search of things missing in their lives, ala Wizard of Oz. Tallahassee wants to find what might be the last twinkie on earth. The two girls want to go to an amusement park to regain a lost childhood. Columbus just like Dorothy wants to go home. If you want a good plot for your movie, you should steal. I’m sorry I meant you should make your movie an homage to the great films of yesteryear. And include a gang insane fuck-ups who kill zombies.

In conclusion, Zombieland (which is now the number one movie in America) was great, sick, twisted fun. It also had heart. This doesn’t make it worthy of Academy consideration, but it does make it a better film. There was one moment that I won’t ruin for you, that actually made me cry. While I am admittedly very sensitive, this was a silly horror-themed comedy! Plus, I was there with my girlfriend. This might be grounds for a break-up. But I digress. Go see Zombieland! Especially if you’re like me and you giggled all the way through Shawn of the Dead.

Best. Movie. Ever.

Okay, so no, not really, but I did get to go see the highly anticipated (for me, anyway) horror-comedy Zombieland, and I have to admit, it was a deliciously fun romp. What Zombieland may lack in philosophical appeal or Oscar-caliber pedigree, it more than makes up with humor, heart and blood. Lots and lots of blood. Blood splattering everywhere. Not since Sam Raimi went all Technicolor in Evil Dead 2 have I seen as much splatter used to such hilarious on-screen effect. I swear to God, I'm not a sicko.

I should preface this by saying I have been shamefully remiss because my friend, Shane, graciously agreed to write me a guest blog entry reviewing Zombieland. I didn't think I'd be able to see it, as my mom has returned to Florida for the winter, taking with her the babysitting opportunities my husband and I enjoy during the summer. But it's my beloved's b'day, so another friend graciously agreed to come herd the cats...er, I mean watch my children, and off we went.

Shane, if you're reading this, I'm going to post your review tomorrow. I didn't forward myself the link you'd sent to me on my work email because I thought I would remember it. Keep in mind, I don't remember how old I am on any given Sunday. So I'm sorry. Really sorry. I'm not ignoring you. I will post it tomorrow.

Anyway, back to my thoughts on Zombieland, which will be brief, because I don't want to sum up anything Shane so succinctly shares in his assessment of the movie. To me, Zombieland can be summed up in a single scene, that in which special guest cameo star Bill Murray (playing himself) is asked if there's anything in his life he regrets. After a thoughtful pause, he replies, "Well, maybe Garfield."

That, my friends, is the spirit of Zombieland. Unlike its predecessor, Shawn of the Dead, which while ingenious and at times, hilarious, fell into the trap of taking itself entirely too seriously in other places, Zombieland never takes its tongue out of its proverbial cheek. There's one relatively serious moment in the film, but it's so fleeting, it gives the rest of the flick some context, if nothing else. Zombieland is funny as hell. It's not going to win any awards for Best Actor or Best Screen Adaptation or Best Ensemble Cast, but it's still the best movie I've seen so far this year. Even if it does have Woody Harrelson in it. (Dear Lord, never get me going on my Woody Harrelson aversion, which quite possibly runs even more deeply than my Christian Bale aversion -- another sore spot. And is it just me, or can you pretty much take Woody Harrelson and Matthew McConnaghey in any given role(s) and interchange them pretty seamlessly?)

Anyway. Shane's review tomorrow. Suffice it to say, Zombieland makes the grade.

And who besides me is stoked as hell to see The Men Who Stare at Goats? Dear God in a bucket, it looks hilarious. I cannot wait. You'll find the trailer here.

Is there anything more scrumptious and guilty a pleasure as a scary movie set in outer space? Yes, the underrated and vastly cinematically under-produced space opera horror flick comes around once in a blue, bloody moon, and not since the ghastly, ghoulishly fun Ghosts of Mars has anything remotely approaching this cross-genre appeared on the big screen. But while Ghosts of Mars was fun in a chocolate-covered-peanuts sort of way, meaning it was tasty enough in the consumption, but in the aftermath, it made you feel kind of bloated, your teeth sort of furry, nothing can eclipse the quintessential sci-fi-horror masterpiece that is Event Horizon. With the possible exception of the original Alien, which pretty much gave birth to this film niche, no other sci-fi-horror movie has come as close to moviegoing horrorific sci-fi perfection as this 1997 offering starring Lawrence Fishburn and the always supremely cool as shit Sam Neill.

I mention this because the movie my husband and I went to see tonight, Pandorum, likewise doesn't come close to being as good. Or as suspenseful. Or as scary. Or as cerebral. And it doesn't leave you thinking about it for prolonged periods of time in the aftermath, haunting you. Pandorum doesn't haunt, but it does leave some lingering questions. These were caused by plot holes, mind you, rather than deliberate posings screenwriters intended. But I'm going to blame Pandorum's film editors rather than the script itself, because the questions you leave with aren't really pressing.

Pandorum starts off with a lot of promise. A young military astronaut named Bower, played with screen appeal and aplomb by Ben Foster (most recognizable, at least to me, as the high-flyin' Angel from the abysmal trainwreck that was X-Men: The Last Stand), awakens from cryostasis with a severe case of amnesia. Unclear of where he is, or his mission, he finds himself on a seemingly deserted ship that suffers from periodic power outages. The only other person he can find is his commanding officer, played with his usual likable stage presence by Dennis Quaid, who has also just emerged from extended cryo-sleep. They're both confused and because of the power outage, pretty much trapped in the room in which they awaken, so Bower volunteers to clamber through the ceiling ductwork and try to find his way to the bridge.

From there, the fun starts. I won't give too much away except to say they're not as alone as they first believe themselves to be. The ship appears to have been overrun by strange, deformed beings who enjoy the occasional human entrail for a snack. While Quaid spends the next 90 some-odd minutes trying to maintain radio contact from inside the locked room, Bower spends it ducking, weaving, fighting and otherwise trying to avoid said deformed creatures. His goal is to get to the ship's nuclear reactor and manually reset it, as he realizes the power surges indicate the reactor core is getting ready to shut down. If that happens, the ship will have no power at all and everyone on board it -- thousands of passengers sent from Earth in the hopes of repopulating a distant, habitable planet -- will die. That is, if they haven't already all been eaten by the strange, deformed folks. Stay with me, people.

I read a review on Rotten Tomatoes that said the creatures in this creature feature look a hell of a lot like those in Ghosts of Mars. And I have to admit, they do. There's no Pam Grier this time around to bust some ass or wind up with her head on a stake, but it looks like the costume and props department from that film all found gigs again. But that doesn't make them any less scary. Because frankly, they freaked me out in Ghosts of Mars, and they had the same effect in Pandorum.

Pandorum was fun. The plot twist at the end works well. I'd read that the middle dragged on to some reviewers, but I didn't really get a sense of that, at least, not dragging the way the end of Return of the King dragged on and on and on and on for a good twenty minutes longer than anyone alive could have possibly needed (and I say that with love as a diehard, true blue, nerd-girl LOTR fan). Of course, I'd been slurping on a medium sized Diet Coke (translation - a two-liter, in movie concession terms) and kept having to pee during the middle of the movie, so that could explain why it didn't seem tedious to me.

There's a lot of action. Some gore, but nothing gruesome. Lots of dark shadows, dimly lit corridors, creatures scuttling and scrabbling. There's a creepy-as-hell mutant kid at the end, a sort of Lolita-meets-the-Road-Warrior that left me feeling sort of squicked out. The story had a lot of original, interesting elements, even though it borrowed heavily from the more tried-and-true formulas of its predecessor sci-fi-horror flicks in others.

I think as Corporal Bower, Ben Foster makes the movie, at least for me. He gives a good performance as a likeable, earnest character the audience wants to see succeed. Quaid jokingly calls him a Boy Scout throughout the flick, and really, Bower is. He's the all-American soldier, steadfast, morally upright, determined, brave, all that. In the end, as Bower struggles with his own fears of mental breakdown (the title, Pandorum, refers to a fictional psychosis that is said can grip folks who travel too long in space), Foster brings just enough darkness and edginess to the role that you believe this kid you've rooted for all along just might be a homicidal loon.

Pandorum isn't Event Horizon, but hey, it's going to take a lot to topple that particular flick off the top of the sci-fi-horror totem pole of greatness. Pandorum's not Oscar-caliber by any stretch of the imagination, for that matter. But for a good date night, something worth seeing that won't leave you walking out of the theater feeling strangely cheated out of the last two hours of your life -- like Gamer turned out to be -- Pandorum fills the bill pretty nicely, all things considered.