Fahrenheit 451:

Is it weird that I didn’t especially care for Fahrenheit 451? Despite the fact that I’m a huge fan of author Ray Bradbury, “451″ felt like the work of a young, inexperienced writer finding his way. The book, with its anti-censorship stance, is on-target thematically, but the bulk of the text comes off as stretched and thin. Basically, what we have here is a short story blown out to novel length, but there’s not enough material to support the expansion.

Also, in this story, one of the writer’s chief virtues becomes a liability. When he’s at the top of his game (which is a frighteningly high percentage of the time), Bradbury’s writing is poetic in a clean and elegantly beautiful way. Fahrenheit 451, however, is self-consciously poetic in places and it’s very jarring.

Zombieland:

Zombieland, while not exactly High Art, was both funnier and more sophisticated than I expected it to be. The film was defined for me by two of its strongest scenes — a moment of genuine pathos late in the story, and also one of the funniest celebrity cameos of all time. Both scenes, as different as they were, generated a lot of affection in me for the movie as a whole.

We need more movies like Zombieland (and, indeed, we used to get them). Where is it written that all films nowadays must be bloated and shallow? Personally, I would much rather see something like Zombieland than I would Transformers — films with modest ambitions, executed with enthusiasm rather than with a crass eye toward commercial exploitation.

500 Days of Summer:

500 Days of Summer is another example of the sort of movie which seems to be endangered in the current blockbuster-driven Hollywood ecosystem. (Funny that I managed to see two such movies in one weekend. Sadly, I don’t think this signifies a trend.)

“Summer” is a simple love story (or rather an anti-love story). Though it’s not completely successful, it feels both sincere and hand-crafted. The central narrative device — the nonlinear recounting of a doomed relationship — wears a little thin, but that doesn’t undermine the fine acting and otherwise clever screenplay.