In no particular order (or genre, really), here are spoiler-free reviews of what I’ve been watching this summer:

Zombieland – I really didn’t think I’d like it at all.  I’m not a Woody Harrelson fan.  In fact, I’m anti-Harrelson.  So much so that my Netflixed copy of the movie sat there for two months (TOTALLY making the $15/month subscription worthwhile) before N and I finally decided to give it a go.

And guess what?  WE LOVED IT.  BOTH of us.  Huzzah!

It opens with one of my favorite Metallica songs…I chose to focus on that rather than the significant blood and gore.  I’ve got a strong stomach – and a long-standing fondness for horror movies – but holy jeebus, you know?  I wasn’t sure I was going to make it past the first ten minutes, but it was a little less gory after that.

Anyway, as it turns out, there’s a lot to enjoy.  Harrelson’s character isn’t a total jerk – well, maybe he is a little.  But I liked him anyway.  It was funny, and smart, and moved along at a great clip.  And as an added bonus there’s a “reveal” at the end which I personally thought was cool (though I am one of a very specific population subset that would have cared).

In general, anything that both N and I actively enjoy automatically gets an A+.  If you can handle the gore (most of which has a comic book-esque feel), Zombieland is an absolute must-see.

War – Ugh, was watching this one ever a debacle.  It was next up in my queue after Zombieland, and didn’t have to wait nearly as long to be popped in the DVD player.  After all, it’s got everything:  fast action, flashy cars, hard-core martial arts and Jason Statham.  And with no chance that N would care anything about it, I could fire it up at will without waiting on him to “be in the right mood” to watch with me.  What could go wrong?  (Hint: as your high school English teacher would point out, this is called foreshadowing.)

Everything was fine for the first 10 minutes or so, then the disc started causing me problems – it was dirty and scratched up, and it began to take serious coaxing to  convince our persnickety DVD player to keep at it.  (Fastforward.  Pause.  Restart chapter.  Fastforward.  COME ON, PLEASE.)  Eighteen minutes into the movie I had to throw in the towel.  The disc was just too badly damaged and I had to request a replacement copy.  The new copy arrived while I was out of town for a week and a half, again making excellent use of our Netflix membership.  FINALLY I had time to try again.  Replacement disc goes in and the DVD player just flashes “DISC IS TOO DIRTY”.  WTF.  We’ve owned that DVD player for nine years (!) and it has NEVER said that before.* So I take it out, scrub it down with my shirttail, curse mightily at my fellow Netflix members, who are apparently too irresponsible/lazy/stupid to take care of DVDs that don’t belong to them (N says: This surprises you why?), and put it back in.  TWENTY MINUTES LATER, the stars align, I get things going and manage to pick up where I’d left off two weeks before.

The rest of the movie played without incident, and then it was over.  Just like that.  SO abruptly, in fact, that I actually screeched at the TV “THAT’S IT?!  I WENT THROUGH ALL THAT FOR THAT CRAP ENDING?!”  N found the whole scenario wholly amusing, I cursed at Netflix some more for good measure and sulked the rest of the night.  The end.

In short:  I WANT THOSE HOURS OF MY LIFE BACK.

Salt -After running in the San Francisco Marathon (I did the half, N did the full, more on that later if I ever get around to it), we were far too exhausted to contemplate doing anything other than sitting.  A nice movie in a comfy theater seemed like a good idea.  The original plan was to see Inception but it was sold out.  Salt was Plan B.

Not bad at all.  It certainly didn’t do anything to change my opinion of Angelina Jolie as a badass.  She’s gorgeous and sexy and awesome.  Liev Schreiber is a great actor and perfectly suited for his role.  The plot and script were just so-so,  but the whole movie was adrenaline-charged enough to keep me interested the entire time.  The actor they had playing Salt’s husband was pretty creepy and gross, but thankfully his scenes were limited.  Overall, it was well-casted and decently-acted. 

Final verdict:  An enjoyable watch and something I could probably sit through again, though I have no desire to buy it when it comes out on DVD.

The Other Guys – Normally I’m not in a rush to see comedies in the theater.  When you have 2 kids, going to the movies becomes rediculously expensive by the time you pay the babysitter so we usually reserve that honor for something that will be noticably different on the big screen.  (Case in point: Prior to seeing Salt when we were in SF sans kids, the last movie we went to go see was Star Trek.  Yes.)

But Mark Wahlberg is adorable and Will Farrell is hilarious, so when the opportunity presented itself (read: when in The Swamp and grandparents were available for kid duty) I dragged him to the local theater (where we know the manager and can get in for free.  Bonus!).

When watching a comedy, there’s always the risk that all the funny parts were used in the TV promos and trailers and the actual movie won’t be all that great.  And since I have a grandma-like sense of humor, there’s alway the additional chance that there will be so much crude toilet humor that I won’t be able to get past it.  But The Other Guys did not disappoint.  The whole thing was just as laugh-out-loud hilarious as the trailers.  Will Farrell was just doing his usual shtick, of course – he’s kind of a one-trick pony in my opinion but that doesn’t stop it from being hysterical.  Mark Wahlberg and Michael Keaton were great complements to Farrell and really stole the show. 

The casting just worked – Farrell was perfect for the role of doofy police accountant, and Wahlberg was a great choice as his reluctant partner.  They bantered well, and the jokes were easy and none of the humor seemed too forced.  You can tell a lot of Farrell’s lines were improv, but that’s what he does best.

Very, very funny.  I highly recommend.  Even N (who I have noticed seems to actually be the person reviewing every movie that I see, if by proxy) laughed out loud quite frequently, and since he is the world’s most stoic movie-watcher I think that’s high praise.  Go.  Now.  I promise,you won’t be sorry.

*The very next movie in my Netflix queue was Without a Paddle,which I cannot currently review for you as I have not yet seen it, because I am waiting on my replacement copy, BECAUSE THE DVD I RECEIVED WAS SO BADLY DAMAGED THAT MY DVD PLAYER DID NOT EVEN RECOGNIZE IT.  NO DISC, IT SAID.  PLEASE INSERT A DISC.  NETFLIX, YOU ARE ON NOTICE.