This week at the movies…

Opening today are Whip It

and

Zombieland

Whip It

Rating: PG-13 [See Full Rating] for sexual content including crude dialogue, language and drug material

Genre: Comedy

Starring: Ellen Page, Marcia Gay Harden, Kristen Wiig, Drew Barrymore

Director: Drew Barrymore

Plot: Drew Barrymore makes her directorial debut with this feisty, female-friendly action-comedy. JUNO’s Ellen Page stars as Bliss Cavendar, a young woman who longs to break free of her small-town bonds by joining the rough-and-tumble sport of roller derby in nearby Austin, Texas.

Kate says: 3 1/2 stars Funny, quirky, witty, entertaining, engaging  and thoroughly fun time at the movies.  Ellen Page is perfect as Bliss and Barrymore  does an excellent job in her directorial debut. stars 

Ebert says: 3 1/2 stars “In her debut as a director, Barrymore shows she must have been paying attention ever since Spielberg cast her when she was 5. She and her team do an especially effective job in staging the derby showdowns.”

Reelviews says: 2 stars “The movie is too safe and generic; even the best director would be challenged to do much with the material. At its best, this could have been a passable distraction and at its worst, it could have been unwatchable. Barrymore manages to bring it in somewhere in between those extremes.”

Zombieland

Rating: R [See Full Rating] for horror violence/gore and language

Genre: Horror/Suspense

Starring:Woody Harrelson, Jesse Eisenberg, Emma Stone, Abigail Breslin

Director: Reuben Fleischer

Plot: Columbus (Jesse Eisenberg) has made a habit of running from what scares him. Tallahassee (Woody Harrelson) doesn’t have fears. If he did, he’d kick their ever-living ass. In a world overrun by zombies, these two are perfectly evolved survivors. But now, they’re about to stare down the most terrifying prospect of all: each other. –© Sony

Kate says: Will get back to you on this one.

Ebert says: 3 stars “The filmmakers show invention and well-tuned comic timing, and above all, there’s a cameo by Bill Murray that gets the single biggest laugh I’ve heard this year.”

Miami Herald says: 3 stars “Fleischer never lets Zombieland tip over into drama for too long, because the overriding mission here is to laugh in the face of the apocalypse (when Harrelson’s Tallahassee recounts an unexpectedly moving tragedy from his past, the scene catches you by surprise with its sadness, until Harrelson caps off the story with “I haven’t cried like that since Titanic”)