Movie review: Easy A

Olive (Emma Stone) is a normal high school girl. When she figures out that one's popularity doesn't rest on actual events in one's life, she begins rumors about her sex life to skyrocket her social standing.

The movie opens with Olive trying to avoid going on vacation with her best friend, Rhiannon, and Rhiannon's hippy parents. She lies about having a date with a college boy, which leads Rhiannon to believe that Olive will lose her virginity. When Monday morning arrives, Rhiannon grills Olive for details. Initially, Olive says nothing happened on her date. After attempting to endure Rhiannon's antics, Olive lies about having sex. The rumor quickly spreads around the entire school and Olive finds herself slightly more popular as a result.

In class, where they are learning about "The Scarlet Letter," Olive is harassed by one of her classmates. She uses a vulgar retort and ends up in the principal's office, receiving detention as a punishment. In detention, she meets Brandon (Dan Byrd), a gay classmate with bully problems. The two become quick friends.

Brandon convinces Olive to pretend to have sex with him a party so the other guys will think he is straight and stop bullying him. Olive goes along with the plan, believing that more fake sex will raise her popularity even more. When she receives a gift from Brandon afterward, she realizes that there is a financial gain as well.

Soon, word gets out among the unpopular kids at school. Olive will have fake sex with people for gift cards. Unfortunately, this leads Marianne (Amanda Bynes), the leader of the school's religious group, to try to reform Olive's evil ways. The two strangely become friends. Until Marianne's boyfriend, Micah (Cam Gigandet), lies about contracting a sexually transmitted disease from Olive. An enraged Marianne tries to get Olive expelled.

With her reputation in the trash, Olive realizes that this type of popularity isn't what she actually wanted. As she tries to figure a way back to normality, she finds out that her old friend, Todd (Penn Badgley), has been in love with her the entire time. He never believed any of the rumors about her sex life. Together, they crash the school pep rally, telling everyone to watch a webcast. Of course, everyone believes the webcast will be of Olive having sex with Todd. Instead, it is Olive telling the truth about everything.

This is one of those movies I wanted to see as soon as I saw the first trailer. Unfortunately, I ended up having to wait until it hit the RedBox. I'm sad that I waited so long because this was an awesome movie. I had a little bit of difficulty believing Amanda Bynes as a Bible Thumper, but that didn't detract from its enjoyability. Emma Stone was absolutely perfect as Olive. She has managed to perfect the sarcastic wittiness that the character needed. I'm sure many people will write this off as a terrible teen flick. Don't. Go see it!

Movie review: Zombieland

Despite hearing nothing but rave reviews for it, I still didn't want to sit through Zombieland. Zombie movies aren't really my thing, but my husband loves them. After the first few minutes, he told me that I needed to watch this and restarted the movie.

The basic premise is that a virus has taken over the world. Almost everyone has turned into zombies. All of the characters (except for one well-placed cameo) are named after cities. The main character is called Columbus (Jesse Eisenberg), since he is heading there to see if his parents are still alive. On the way, he meets Tallahassee (Woody Harrelson), a rather violent yet fun-loving guy in search of a mere Twinkie. Eventually, two sisters, Wichita (Emma Stone) and Little Rock (Abigail Breslin), finish out the group. Together, they head toward California's Pacific Playland, where the sisters believe there are no zombies.

Zombieland is absolutely hysterical. I laughed my entire way through it. My husband was right. Everyone should see this movie. Even if you hate zombies, I'm pretty sure this will still be your new favorite film.