'Warm Bodies' Review

9/10

PG-13, 98 minutes, 2013

How ironic that a movie about the undead could bring so much life to a genre desperately in need of creativity and originality. Warm Bodies is one of the most surprisingly sweet romantic comedies made in the last decade, despite the presence of flesh-eating hordes, gun-toting teens, and John Malkovich. Made with a touch of indie-film flair, but with enough of the standard boy-meets-girl formula and zombie mayhem to appeal to the casual film-goer, this may be the most widely appealing zombie flick since Shaun of the Dead. Funny how both of said films are comedies. Maybe this is proof that zombie films should never be taken seriously. And yet, despite the humor and satire present, Bodies turns into what could be the most rewarding of zombie films on an emotional level, not just because of the Shakespearean romance, but because of the way the film calls us to reexamine our own lives, and what it means to be human.

R (Nicholas Hoult) is a zombie, and our semi-reliable narrator. After a zombie apocalypse, the world has been divided into three categories: surviving humans, brain-seeking zombies, and the dangerous "boneys," which are essentially walking black skeletons. R spends his days wandering around an airport overrun by his kind, trying to interact with other zombies and musing about who he was before the apocalypse happened. The film's humor sets in almost immediately, as we realize what these zombies represent: human beings who have lost their humanity, and are desperately searching for it, while the boneys are the ones who have given up hope entirely. The reason why the zombies eat brains is to feel a bit of the humanity they lost, if only for a moment (upon eating the brains, they see the memories of the brain-owner). R wants very badly to regain his old life, but this is hard when your body is decaying and conversations are limited to grunts. "Must have been a lot better before, when everyone could express themselves, communicate their feelings and just enjoy each other's company," R thinks to himself. This musing is immediately followed by a shot of the airport before the apocalypse, when everyone was still human, but plugged into their phones. You see the parallel, right? Yeah buddy, it was a lot better before.

But like all classic romances, a girl (Teresa Palmer) soon enters the picture. A human girl, no less. And suddenly, R is able to make more than one facial expression. He can now make his eyes widen like "whoa." The girl's name is Julie (that's right, R and Julie) and she and her friends are out retrieving medical supplies for Julie's father, who runs the human survival camp. The attraction is real, but many obstacles will have to be overcome to win her love, the first being that during the attack, he unknowingly killed her boyfriend and ate his brains. Darn. But once R rescues Julie from the hordes, he does his best not to kill her, or anyone else ever again. Soon, Julie begins to see something different about R. She recognizes the humanity he has deep down under all that rotting flesh and bone. Convincing her dad to allow such a relationship will be a challenge, especially since her dad is John Malkovich. Julie's bitter father has, in some ways, lost his humanity too, because he's allowed tragedy to harden his heart, and can no longer see the goodness in the world, let alone in zombies.

All this plays out like a star-crossed romance, but with a rom-com happy ending that works on both a comedy and romance level. If you're a cynic about love, you won't appreciate the way that love is used to make the zombies human again. But that's exactly why this is one of the most unexpectedly uplifting zombie movies of all time. Through the power of human affection, the zombies' blood starts pumping again, and they are able to rejoin society. Blessed Mother Teresa once said that "We can cure physical diseases with medicine, but the only cure for loneliness, despair, and hopelessness is love." It's a simple message, but one that is often taken for granted and rarely shown on the screen in such a way that doesn't feel forced. In this way, Warm Bodies not only reinvigorates the romantic comedy, but also the age old message of love's healing power, a message that never really decays.

'Big Eyes' Review

7/10

PG-13, 106 minutes, 2014

It is perhaps fitting that Tim Burton, a director whose filmography defines kitsch, would choose to direct a biopic about a fellow artist from the 1960’s who helped make kitsch cool. Strange, then, that Big Eyes turns into what could be Tim Burton’s least kitschy film. This is not entirely a bad thing, as many of his recent directorial efforts were not as successful as his earlier pop-culture hits. However, by playing this one mostly straight, and less wacky, it loses some of that classic Burton feel that fans (myself included) have grown to love. That being said, one has to respect the man for branching out and trying his hand at something different, and coming up with mostly satisfying results.

Big Eyes is the crazy true story of artist Margaret Keane (Amy Adams) who became famous for her paintings of “doe-eyed” children, but not before her husband Walter (an evil-but-in-a-funny-way Christoph Waltz) takes credit for her paintings and forces her to keep producing them under his name. When the two first meet at a San Francisco art fair, he appears charming and even talented, presenting work that he claims to have painted himself. Margaret buys into his outward kindness and flattery, and the two are soon married. Not long after this, Margaret’s work catches the public eye when Walter is displaying their combined work, his being generally ignored. He then convinces his wife to put the paintings under his name since “women’s art isn’t taken seriously.” Confused and reluctant though she is, Margaret does what her husband says and the profits come rolling in. But despite her new-found prosperity, her life begins to feel like a cage, as she grows more and more uncomfortable lying to her friends, the press, and especially her daughter, Jane, whom she had from a previous marriage. She grows even more uncomfortable once she realizes just how sociopathic her husband really is.

Burton’s eye for visuals is on full display here, though in a more restrained manner than Edward Scissorhands or Charlie and the Chocolate Factory. He uses his tricks well to capture the period mood, and to convey Margaret’s inner turmoil about lying, which was often reflected in Margaret’s own paintings during her marriage to Walter. The most Burton-esque moment comes during a scene in the grocery store when Margaret begins seeing the customers and employees with big eyes like the ones in her paintings. The movie could have actually used more weird moments like this, especially towards the end when the film begins to drag a bit. But the final scene makes the drier parts worth it, when the court finally decides who the real artist is. While the trial seems outlandish and unbelievable, it just goes to show that truth can be stranger than fiction.

Faith plays an interesting role in this movie as well. Although there is a certain “try anything” attitude Margaret takes, which feels realistic for the decade, she comes off as a woman genuinely searching for what is good, and just never had anyone to show her the way. Experiencing intense guilt one day, she goes to a Catholic priest for confession, even though she was raised Methodist. (Not telling the priest the whole situation, he is unable to give her sound advice.) Later, she reads a pamphlet from Jehovah’s witnesses about the value of honesty, and has a conversion to their faith. (Again, true to the real story.) This conversion leads to her decision to come clean about who the real artist is. Rather than see this as a ‘make your own truth’ philosophy, I see it as a testament to universal truths, specifically honesty, that can be found in all faiths. All people are on different journeys, but real, lasting truth can always be found if you’re truly open to it. In Big Eyes, Margaret Keane discovers the value of honesty, and as a result, she is set free.