Cameron Crowe’s next film, due in theaters later this year, is called “We Bought a Zoo.” The title is not metaphorical: It is about a family that buys a defunct zoo and saves the animals from destruction. What’s more, it’s based on a true story. Some family really did this! In England! Then one of them, Benjamin Mee, wrote a book about it, and here we are. (The author is being played by Matt Damon, so that worked out pretty well for him.)
As intriguing as this story sounds, we can’t help but feel bad for the other “We Bought a…” stories that have been overlooked by Hollywood. Movies about buying things can be very entertaining! We hope that “We Bought a Zoo” will kick off a new trend. To help, we offer the following suggestions.
We Bought an Island
A mega-rich but dysfunctional family — unfaithful dad, alcoholic mom, lazy adult children — tries to repair its fractured relationships by purchasing a small Pacific island and living there for a week. Written and directed by Wes Anderson, and starring the people who are always in Wes Anderson movies.
We Bought an iPad
This harrowing, “Saw”-like horror film tells of the ordeal a group of friends endure when they line up a day early at the Apple store to get the latest version of the iPad — only to have the NEXT version announced while they wait. Mayhem and carnage ensue.
We Bought a Zima
Michael Cera, Joseph Gordon-Levitt, and Andy Samberg play a trio of Portland hipsters searching for the ultimate thing to enjoy ironically. Their wishes are fulfilled when they stumble into a wormhole and come out in 1994, where Zima is the most popular beverage in all the land.
We Bought a Bot
Here is a futuristic sci-fi adventure about a wealthy husband and wife who purchase a robot nanny, the Poppins-5000, to care for their children. But when the nanny bot malfunctions, becomes over-protective, and starts killing any child in the neighborhood it perceives as a threat, the parents must intervene to stop its rampage.
We Bought Hershey Bars and Graham Crackers, But We Forgot Marshmallows
In this lighthearted Disney comedy, a family’s camping trip goes hilariously wrong after Dad (Martin Lawrence) neglects to bring all the s’mores ingredients. Then he gets outsmarted by, I don’t know, a raccoon or something. Isn’t there usually a raccoon in these things?
We Bought a Zuul
Uh-oh! There are wacky shenanigans aplenty when the Robinson family brings home a large, horned dog from the pound, only to discover it’s actually Zuul, the demigod gatekeeper of Gozer who was worshipped by the Sumerians and Hittites in 6000 B.C.! Better get the extra-large bag of dog food!
We Bought a Muffin
A young lady wants to buy a muffin at Starbucks, but she doesn’t have enough cash and doesn’t want to use her debit card, so her friend lends her a dollar. Hmm. Now that we think about, this doesn’t sound like a very good movie after all. (We’d watch it before we’d sit through Sofia Coppola’s “Somewhere” again, though.)
— Film.com
