Death Becomes Her.

Robert Zemeckis doesn’t really need an introduction.  Let’s face it… the guy did the “Back to the Future” movies.  This movie came after that trilogy (as well as after “Who Framed Roger Rabbit”).  The movie that followed "Death Becomes Her" was “Forrest Gump”.  While I hardly feel that this movie will show itself to be the missing link between Marty McFly in the wild west and ‘life is like a box of chocolates’, I hope it will, at the very least, be fun for Lovelock and Starkwell.  They don’t often get to watch movies starring Oscar winners and John McClane with a mustache.

[...]

[We are introduced to Meryl Streep as a hammy musical actor.  The film opens with a musical number from her failing musical.]

Lovelock: Wait, Glenn Close is in this movie?

Starkwell: Every damn time.

[...]

Anyways, no one in the audience seems to be impressed with the play, except for Bruce Willis, who, armed with an almost-mullet and horrible mustache, cheers wildly.  He plays nerdy plastic surgeon Ernest.  Most everyone else has walked out.  Ernest and his fiancée Helen, played by Goldie Hawn, go backstage to meet Madeline (Meryl Streep), the washed up actress.

[...]

[Eventually, Ernest leaves Helen and marries Madeline.]

Starkwell: Well that was… quick?

[Flash forward seven years.  Helen is a fat depressed cat lady with a shitload of cats, and she sits around watching TV and eating tubs of ice cream.]

Lovelock: I’m sorry, but Bruce Willis with a mustache is just not worth it.

[She is CLEARLY obsessed with murdering Madeline, and gets evicted from her apartment and committed to the ol' loony bin.]

Lovelock: What in the…

[Wait… Ernest is no longer a plastic surgeon… instead he is a mortician?]

[...]

Then it flashes forward to yet another seven years later.  Fourteen years and no one has aged AT ALL.  It appears that Ernest and Madeline are no longer happy.  Surprise surprise.  Madeline goes to some kind of super secret spa where the clinicians (?) dress like porn stars and talk like bad actors trying to sound like French people... German people? … Not sure.  Anyways, Helen has lost the weight and has invited Ermest and Madeline to her book launch party.

[...]

[Madeline sees Helen, looking all thin and beautiful, and says it has been “12 long years”… except that we know it has been 14.  Which is weird.]

Lovelock: Some Oscar winner… she can’t count?

[...]

After being rejected by her young loverboy (I assume she cheats on Ernest a lot), Madeline goes to the super secret castle / laboratory that the eurotrash secret spa owner told her about (?).  Meanwhile Helen goes over to Ernest’s house to almost bang him and plan Madeline’s murder with him.

[...]

Lovelock: I would like it if death become her a little quicker.

Starkwell: Nice.

Lovelock: In fact, let's have some death all around.  Please. Now.

[Ernest forgoes the plan laid out with Helen, but instead, throws Madeline down the stairs.]

Lovelock: SWEET. 

[Madeline gets up, all mangled like a pretzel, with her head backwards.]

Lovelock: That, surprisingly, looked fucking amazing.

[...]

They go to the doctor’s office, and it is quite apparent that Madeline is dead, as she feels no pain.  But since she is walking around, she is UNDEAD.  Lovelock and Starkwell rejoice.

[...]

[Dressed like the world’s lamest cat burglar, Helen follows Ernest around.]

Lovelock: Why is she wearing sunglasses at night?

Starkwell: Who knows.

Lovelock: She probably thinks "if I can't see them, they can't see me"... like an infant would think.

[...]

Eventually Helen finds her way back to Ernest’s house and Madeline shoots her with a shotgun, but she ALSO GETS UP.  In what is probably the best line in the movie, Bruce Willis yells out “IT’S ANOTHER MIRACLE.”  It doesn’t sound that funny out of context, but Lovelock and Starkwell replayed it several times.   The movie has been quite boring, I should add.

[...]

[Helen took the same potion, as it turns out.]

Starkwell: So… they both knew about the super secret castle thing?

Lovelock: Well, it is a movie.

[...]

[Madeline and Helen fight for like a minute, but then they make up and are best friends forever.]

Lovelock: So that’s it?

[They force Ernest to make them look beautiful again.]

Starkwell: Might be the lamest zombies ever.

[They bring Ernest to the super castle where they try to give him the potion… he decides not to.]

Lovelock: Dude, why not!?!?!

Starkwell: Watching everyone you love die, eternal loneliness… he makes some solid points.

Lovelock: Whatever dude, I’d totally be Wolverine.

Starkwell: How’s that work?

Lovelock: LIFE IS LIKE A BOX OF CHOCOLATES.

Starkwell: Let me stop you right there.

[...]

37 years later, Ernest died.  He went on to do a whole bunch of amazing things and then the movie basically says the only way to live forever is to live on in the people that you love.  Ain't that sweet?  Then Meryl Streep and Goldie Hawn show up, fall down a flight of stairs and shatter into a bunch of pieces. So… lesson learned?  There are a lot of holes in this movie.  They cover up most of them by 'flashing forward' a number of years.  You don't need to explain HOW Madeline found success again, you can just say 'seven years later' and let the audience make up the rest?  What is this, a 'choose your own' adventure book?  Lazy.  As a short film, this movie would have worked.  There just ain't enough meat in there for a full length, in my opinion.  Starkwell agrees.   Lovelock doesn't care.

Zombie High.

Long before getting an Oscar nomination, Virginia Madsen had the privilege of being in a little known ‘80s piece of shit known as Zombie High.  Never heard of it?  Neither has anyone else in the world.  But it’s there on Netflix, and therefore, I OBVIOUSLY need to subject Starkwell and Lovelock to it.  I don’t think that this is typical flesh-eating zombie type of stuff, even though the insanely cheesy intro might try and make it look that way, with a drawing of a living dead thing.  Anyways, let’s get this show on the road.

[...]

[Hilarious intro.]

Starkwell: Just in case no one was sure what era it was, the director decided to make, quite possibly the most instantaneously dated intro ever filmed.

Lovelock: Seriously, I bet even in ’87 people were like “man, that shit is just too fucking eighties.”

[...]

It doesn’t take long for us to be introduced to a parade of eighties clichés.  Jock, punk, tennis preppy boys, sluts, weird hipster art dudes, you know, all that shit.  Lovelock and Starkwell seem to be basking in the nostalgic glory of it all.  They both simultaneously commented on Virginia Madsen’s “mom” jeans and how nicely it accentuated her fupa.

[...]

[We are introduced to Dr. Beauregard Eisner and his faculty of crusty white dudes.]

Lovelock: Solid name for the guy that will clearly be the villain here.

[...]

[It turns out that the creepy guy that Andrea was eyeing earlier in the movie is her TEACHER, he introduces himself to the class.]

Lovelock: Holy shit, why would he put his leg up on the chair and stand like that?

[You kind of had to see it to know what he is talking about, but I felt it was worth mentioning since they both missed the next five minutes because they were laughing so hard.]

[...]

For some reason, one of the roommates’ voices is overdubbed, really badly.  It seems to be annoying Starkwell.  Lovelock thinks it adds to the movie.  We also find out that the school’s founder was a TOTAL PSYCHOPATH, which is probably going to end up being relevant to the story.  Then Andrea has a creepy dream that she is abducted and has a microchip inserted into her neck surgically.

[...]

[Eighties Sex Jam plays as Andrea goes to meet with her teacher, after hours.]

Starkwell: I’ve got a few issues here.  First, she looks the same age as him, even though he’s the teacher and she’s supposedly in high school.  Second, he’s ugly as sin, she isn’t.  Third, his room looks like the set of a porno.

Lovelock: Why isn’t she calling the police?

Starkwell: They should have called the police while making this movie and had production shut down.

[...]

Lovelock suddenly realized that there would be no flesh eating here.  As the “zombie” students closed in on Felner, he realized that there would likely be nothing of value to him, and in a rare move, Lovelock, and not Starkwell, walked out on the movie first.  On his way out, I believe he said “Felner?  Emerson?  Dr. Philo? Who came up with these fucking names?”  Starkwell actually hung on, and every now and then, said some shit out loud.  I did my best to document what happened, when Starkwell was all alone with this movie.

[...]

[Andrea goes to the pool.]

Starkwell: Just once, I’d like to see an actor or actress that knows how to swim.  When you actually know how to swim, there’s something so horribly unattractive about someone ungracefully flailing around in the water like a toddler during their lessons at local YMCA.  The hottest girl or guy can instantly become ugly as taint.

[...]

Starkwell: I guess high school students were MUCH older in the eighties, judging by the fact that most of them look forty.

[...]

Barry, Andrea's boyfriend, comes back to the school to find Andrea, and catches her hanging out with her teacher.  There’s a scene in the library where he punches Dr. Philo in the face, and it was easily the best scene so far, according to Starkwell.  Still not enough to bring Lovelock back though.

[...]

Starkwell: The first forty five minutes of this movie could have been packed into five minutes.  It would still be five boring minutes, but at least then I’d have forty minutes leftover to stare at a wall and imagine a better story.

[...]

I’m starting to think that Starkwell is only hanging around for the jokes.  Either that or he really wants to finally have a “zombie” movie that he sat through that even Lovelock couldn’t bother to finish.  Just then, it finally started to pick up a little steam as Andrea stumbled upon a dead Emerson and some sort of wine cellar, where the crusty faculty members were bottling up… blood?

[...]

Starkwell: So… let me get this straight… she finds dead Emerson, knows that the teachers did it, and RATHER than calling the authorities, she calls her dumb boyfriend… and when he isn’t home, she says “don’t worry it’s not urgent” to his mom?  Is that what’s happening?  Okay, just make sure.  FUCK THIS SHIT!!!

[...]

He’s struggling.  He really wants to have at least one shitty movie that he could sit through that Lovelock couldn’t.  He started to walk away, but turned around saying something like “MUST… HOLD… THE FUCK ON…”  In the next scene, Dr. Philo reveals to Andrea that he is like a hundred years old and it AWKWARDLY and RAPIDLY cuts to the school dance.  Starkwell sat on the couch, in the foetal position, rocking back and forth, crying as it repeatedly awkwardly cut from dance floor shots to Andrea and Dr. Philo arguing and discussing the "facts".  As Dr. Philo explained the faculty’s immortality formula, which involved some kind of blood wine, lobotomizing students, extracting brain tissue and replacing them with magical crystals… he just cried harder and harder and harder.

[...]

[Andrea apparently knows how to hotwire a car.  She steals one and tries to go tell the police, but UH-OH the police are also “zombies”.]

Starkwell: FUCK YOU!!! FUCK YOUuuuuuuu... FUCK! YOUuuuuuUUUUUooouuuu…

[Andrea drives her car into another car.  The car explodes.  She’s somehow totally fine.]

Lovelock: WOAH!  Explosion!  Maybe I was wrong about this.

Starkwell: WHAaaaaa??

Lovelock: It’s okay.  I’ll take it from here.  You can go get some rest.

[...]

Without saying a word, Starkwell ran into his bedroom and fell unconscious immediately.  Right after he left, the plot got even dumber, since, apparently, playing Barry’s shitty mix tape over the school’s speakers will magically reverse the effects of the magical crystals that have been magically planted in all of the students’ brains all around the magical world.  As if by magic.  Anyways, during all of this, there was one cool scene right near the end, where the faculty members all decomposed, melted and died.  There was even a pretty awesome decapitation.  Eventually the movie ends.  I say ‘eventually’ because, holy shit, it takes forever to end.  The best part is, no one is cured.  It ends on ALL OF THAT SCHOOL'S ALUMNI, INCLUDING THE PRESIDENT, dropping dead.  How did they hear Barry's mix tape on the other side of the country?  I'm not sure, but I AM sure that I can hear Starkwell crying from his room.  The end.

The Crow.

Undead ass kicker out for revenge.  Who could ask for more?  It is time for Lovelock and Stakwell to witness Brandon Lee’s swan song, and see if they end up asking for more.  Considering that there were a bunch of sequels made, I guess someone asked for more.  One thing is certain, we all wanted more Brandon Lee.

[...]

[Girl explains The Crow legend.]

Lovelock: How can a young girl have a voice that scratchy?  She sounds like a fifty year old chain smoker.

Starkwell: Hopefully she doesn’t narrate too much of this.

Lovelock: Holy shit!  Ernie Hudson!

Starkwell: Aw man, she’s narrating again.

Lovelock: It’s ok, Brandon’s coming soon.  I can feel it.

[...]

ERIC DRAVEN RISES FROM THE GRAVE!!!  Lovelock took out a pair of nunchuks he had stashed under the couch cushion and started swinging them around.  It was all fun and games until he hit himself in the nuts.  But at least when Draven had his awful rape/murder flashbacks followed by his good-times-with-shelly flashbacks, Lovelock had an excuse for why he was crying.

[...]

Starkwell: The soundtrack does date the movie a little.

Lovelock: A little?

Starkwell: Ok, a lot.

Lovelock: Still, somehow it works.

[...]

[Crow sees thug, Draven sees what crow sees.]

Lovelock: I’d have trouble being The Crow, because I hate birds.

Starkwell: Never mind the whole HORRIBLE DEATH AND QUEST FOR REVENGE.

Lovelock: Well, yeah that sucks too, but birds really freak me out.

[...]

Both Starkwell and Lovelock seemed to be enjoying the movie.  Pretty dark stuff.  They were very excited for Draven to keep killing more dudes.  Hopefully he’d kill Darla, our new favourite person to hate.

[...]

Starkwell: “At least he didn’t do any of that, ‘walkin’ against the wind’ shit.”  Best line ever.

[...]

We get a little more back story into why they were targeted a year ago.  It all makes us hate the bad guys even more.  There’s a certain cheesiness to the movie, but somehow it works.  Like an old grindhouse pic or a bad kung fu movie.

[...]

[Draven plays guitar solo on the roof.  Trashes guitar.]

Lovelock: Not bad.  Would have been cooler if he was playing insane drone or doom metal or something.

Starkwell: He’s kind of the coolest super hero ever.

[...]

They put it to a vote and decided that the worst character is the Asian Half Sister.  She sucks.

[...]

[Crazy John Woo-esque all out gun frenzy.]

Lovelock: I’m. So. Happy.

[...]

[Draven is about to go back to the afterlife to be with his lady, but notices that Sarah was taken.]

Lovelock: Aw man… see, if it wasn’t for the stupid kid, he’d already be in Happy Land.

Starkwell: Whatever, he needs to kill these dudes.

[Crow is shot, Draven is vulnerable, but in comes ERNIE FUCKING HUDSON!!!!!]

Lovelock: Who you gonna call!?!?!?!?!

[...]

Then Lovelock made up and sang some song about Ernie Hudson.  I think he mentioned “No Escape” at one point.

[...]

[Crow pecks out Asian Half Sister’s eyes.]

Lovelock: And that’s why I have an irrational fear of birds.  That could totally happen.

Starkwell: Whatever you say man… I’m just glad she’s dead.

[...]

Then Draven basically goes all Spock Mind Meld on the bad guy and his brain explodes and he gets impaled on a cross.  It’s awesome and Lovelock and Starkwell cheered.  Draven and Shelly are reunited and everything is awesome fantastic.  It does end on another Young Girl Sarah narration, which annoys Starkwell, but not enough to ruin the experience.

Ghost Brigade.

If I told you there was a film starring Martin Sheen, Billy Bob Thornton, David Arquette, Matt LeBlanc and Corbin Bernsen, about a band of zombie soldiers during the civil war, you might think I was making it up.  Well, I’m not.  Starkwell and Lovelock are about to embark on a journey deep into forgotten pockets of some relatively well known actors’ careers, and I get to write down some of what they have to say about it.  Welcome to 1993’s “Ghost Brigade”.

[...]

Starkwell: Full screen?  That screams straight to video to me.

Lovelock: Or made for TV.

[...]

[Martin Sheen as a Union general.]

Starkwell: Man, who did he owe a favor to for this?

Lovelock: Performance – PHONED IN.

Starkwell: Isn’t that the guy from ‘Heroes’?

Lovelock: I wonder how many careers this movie started…

Starkwell: I’m actually starting to wonder how many it ended.

[...]

The plot pressed forward.  It was a decent story, but when played out with this budget, costumes from a Halloween store, sets from a community theatre troupe, and this sad display of both over acting and under acting, it was clear that it was going to fall short, no matter who is in the cast.  Still, Starkwell and Lovelock paid attention, laughing loudly at Corbin Bernsen’s boobies.

[...]

[Enter the zombie platoon.]

Starkwell: That is either the worst zombie makeup ever, or the lamest war paint ever.

Lovelock: Either way, I hate them.

[Billy Bob Thornton dies.]

Starkwell: Killer amount of screen time there, Billy Bob.

Lovelock: I guess he was still an up and comer.

Starkwell: I wonder how much this movie delayed him.

[...]

Then Billy Bob returns as a zombie, and recruits DAVID ARQUETTE, but too late, Arquette just blew his brains out.  They agreed it was the best Arquette has ever been.

[...]

[Guy plays a Jew’s harp.  We hear it for the next twenty minutes.]

Lovelock: I knew a guy who chipped his tooth on one of those.

Starkwell: Really?

Lovelock: Probably.

[...]

[Bernsen’s nephew is killed in a flashback.]

Starkwell: Twelve year old nephew? I thought that was a thirty year old woman.

Lovelock: What was the point of the drummers in the platoon anyways?

Starkwell: It seems like it was to draw enemy fire.

Lovelock: Seems like a pretty shitty job.

[...]

Then Bernsen dove into a puddle head first and came up in a mysterious cave with his zombie nephew.  Starkwell and Lovelock still aren’t sure if it’s a young boy or woman, but they both agreed that his voice was awful, and had trouble listening to his incredibly long monologue.  It was around this time that they both REALLY started to lose interest.  Between the cheesy monologues, the out of place homosexual themes between Bernsen and 'Heroes' Guy, and the schizophrenic cuts, it was really tough to blame them.

[...]

[Colonel comes back, but HE’S ONE OF THEM!]

Starkwell: That was the most obvious twist ever.

Lovelock: Wait.  It’s a trap.  Get an axe.

[Colonel is set on fire.]

Starkwell: That was the least dramatic ‘Man being set on fire’ I have ever seen.

Lovelock: This movie BLOWS.  Please end.  Now.

[...]

Starkwell: Why is Billy Bob Thornton smiling so much?

Lovelock: Probably because this was still a step up from “Chopper Chicks in Zombie Town”.

Starkwell: Was it though? Was it?

[...]

[Bernsen is ‘stabbed’.]

Starkwell: The whole ‘sword under the armpit so it looks like you’ve been stabbed trick’?

Lovelock: Yeah… that trick didn’t even look good in Elementary school plays.

Starkwell: What the fuck kind of school plays were you involved with?

Lovelock: Ones better than this movie...

[Lovelock runs away.]

The movie ends.  Hooray.  Let’s just remember that, apparently, Hickenlooper was mostly known for his documentary work.

[Lovelock comes back.]

Lovelock: Wait, where was Joey Tribbiani?

Starkwell: Maybe he skipped it for his 'Friends' audition.

Lovelock: I think he made the right call.

Zombieland.

Comedic zombie movies started a very long time ago.  Movies like “Zombies on Broadway” eventually made way for bizarre '70s comedies, and eventually over-the-top fare like “Return of the Living Dead” through the '80s and '90s.  It takes something truly special to stand out in today’s saturated zombie market, and few zombie comedies have really pulled it off in the last decade or so.  “Zombieland” is one of the more recent successes in the field of hilarious zombie films, by most peoples' standards.  I’m curious to see what Starkwell and Lovelock will have to say.

[...]

[Some rules are introduced.]

Starkwell: I could see that with the fast zombies, it wouldn’t take very long for the world to go to hell.

Lovelock: As evidenced by what you see on the screen.

Starkwell: Slow zombies create much harder and tougher people, because more people survive for longer.

Lovelock: Please don’t ruin this with your IDEAS.

[...]

For a while, the two didn’t say much.  Starkwell would start talking about preferring slow zombies, and Lovelock would tell him to stop being an asshole.  Slow or fast, Starkwell couldn’t help but revel in the great dialogue and top-notch acting.

[...]

[Girls con the dudes.]

Starkwell: Nice con job, but what if Tallahassee had just blown her brains out right away?

Lovelock: I guess that was a risk they were willing to take…

Starkwell: Well that’s dumb.

[...]

I’ll be honest with you.  I stopped keeping track of anything they were saying, I was too into the movie.  I’ve said it before, and I will keep saying it.  A good zombie movie has nothing to do with zombies.  It has nothing to do with gore, action or anything dumb like that.  Character.  Characters that you can relate to, root for, and like.  That’s what sets the good from the bad.  Don’t get me wrong, the film has action, but the characters and their development are front and center.  And that is how it supposed to be.

[...]

[Columbus shoots Bill Murray.]

Starkwell: Fuck, why did they have to kill him?

Lovelock: I think if they had kept him alive it would have been the best movie of all time.

Starkwell: That is hands down the best cameo I’ve ever seen.

Lovelock: Best “As Himself” role I’ve ever seen.

Starkwell: Yeah, forget NPH.

[...]

[Columbus rides motorcycle into bushes.]

Starkwell: That gag never gets old.

Lovelock: Best one ever is in “Pee-Wee’s Big Adventure”.

Starkwell: Agreed.

[...]

[Happy ending.]

Starkwell: The purist in me wants the ending to be depressing, but I can’t help but be so happy that it wasn’t.

Lovelock: I’m in love.

Starkwell: With this movie?

Lovelock: Oh… I meant with Emma Stone… but yeah with this movie.

[...]

Starkwell is a purist, but he is willing to forgive fast zombies.  They are both in agreement.  This movie is an absolute gem.

Zombie Nightmare.

"Zombie Nightmare" is infamously terrible.  A rocking soundtrack, Adam West, Jon Mikl Thor, and to top it all off, I recently learned it was filmed around where Starkwell and Lovelock grew up, in the West Island of Montreal.  No more waiting.  Let’s rock.  Oh yeah, randomly, Tia Carrere is in it.

[...]

[Fat Dude fights street toughs.]

Starkwell: Is he supposed to be married to that old bag, or is that his mother?

Lovelock: How did he instantly bleed from the mouth like that?

Starkwell: Maybe he had a jelly donut in his mouth.

[...]

[Thor prevents a robbery.]

Starkwell: Why would he wear a tanktop that doesn’t cover his nipples?

Lovelock: Maybe he is about to run a marathon and wants to prevent nipple chafe.

Starkwell: I wonder if he’s ever been mistaken for a woman with that hair and those hooters.

[...]

[Thor is hit by car.]

Starkwell: How did he move from the sidewalk to the street like that?

Lovelock: Probably the same way that those two guys managed to wear the same outfit.

Starkwell: Seriously, what’s with the denim?  What are they in prison?

[...]

And only a few minutes later, Starkwell cried out “I’M BOOOOORED”.  Lovelock shushed him and told him that he was sure that Thor wouldn’t let us down.  Failing that, I reminded them both that it’s a short movie.  They both laughed hysterically when the Haitian Priestess had her big scene.  “Nice voice”, said the pair.

[...]

[Thor is revived.]

Starkwell: They cut his hair after he died?

Lovelock: TAKE HIS LIFE, BUT DON’T TAKE HIS HAIR!

[...]

[Two of the punks playing tennis.]

Starkwell: Rebel punks by night… Tennis players by day?

Lovelock: Holy shit!  I know that place.  That’s where my old gym was!

Starkwell: Did Thor kill people at your gym?

Lovelock: Sadly no.

[...]

Starkwell: If I was Tia Carrere, I’d be pretty embarrassed.

Lovelock: If I was Tia Carrere, I’d be FUCKING PUMPED.

[...]

[Adam West as a police Captain.]

Lovelock: Batman has a moustache!

Starkwell: Didn’t help his acting career.

Lovelock: Well, by the mid-eighties that type of moustache was reserved for porn stars.  Mostly the gay ones.

[...]

[Punk tries to rape girl in garbage pile.]

Starkwell: The garbage bags outside of an ice cream place can’t possibly smell very erotic.

Lovelock: I’m surprised that they can just leave the bags out like that.  What about racoons?

[...]

Starkwell and Lovelock talked for several minutes about how much of a dick the detective is.  And how annoying the coroner’s voice is.  And how much they wish Thor would hurry the fuck up and end this thing.

[...]

Starkwell: Why did they bother showing Thor as a kid witnessing his dad’s murder?

Lovelock: Because that’s how the hero was born.

Starkwell: No… voodoo witch made him.

Lovelock: No.  It was his Dad’s death.  Just like Batman.

Starkwell: It’s not like Batman at all.

Lovelock: That’s probably why they got Adam West, since this is basically a remake of Batman.

Starkwell: There are many levels of wrong in your statement.

Lovelock: Fucking Hollywood, and all these remakes.

Starkwell: This is the eighties... in Canada... and it's not a remake!

Lovelock: Same Bat time, same Bat Channel...

[...]

[Thor smashes guy’s head on car.]

Starkwell: You could clearly see him spitting blood at the car before his head hit.

Lovelock: Maybe he ate the same jelly donut that the fat guy at the beginning ate.

[...]

[It turns out Adam West killed Thor’s father.  And the near rape girl was actually the witch!]

Starkwell: Well I’ll be damned.  They brought it all around full circle.

Lovelock: See, now aren’t you glad you stayed all the way until the end.

Starkwell: Not particularly.

[...]

Then an impressive looking zombie flew out of the ground and killed Captain West.  It almost saved the whole film.  As the movie came to a close, Starkwell and Lovelock were partially homesick after seeing all those snippets of where they grew up.  But mostly, they were just regularsick, from having seen such a terrible movie.

I Am Legend.

Unless you count the mockbuster “I Am Omega”, then 2007’s “I Am Legend” is the third and most recent adaptation of the Richard Matheson novel.  This one stars the Fresh Prince and was directed by the director of Britney Spears’ “Slave 4 U” and J. Lo’s “Waiting for Tonight”.  So OBVIOUSLY I’m expecting that Lovelock and Starkwell will like it as much as they did the Vincent Price version from the ‘60s.

[...]

[Three years after the cure for cancer is found, NYC is a deserted wasteland.]

Lovelock: Man, they cured cancer, AND got rid of traffic?

Starkwell: No, dude, I think that humanity was wiped out by some kind of plague.

Lovelock: Fair enough, but it still means no traffic.

[...]

[Neville waits for survivors, plays golf off of an aircraft carrier.]

Lovelock: Doesn’t seem like such a bad life.

Starkwell: He’s completely alone, all the time.

Lovelock: What about that cute girl in the video store?

Starkwell: The mannequin?

Lovelock: Maybe.

[...]

[Puppy runs into building, Neville has to go in after him, and sees monsters.]

Lovelock: That’s why they have leash laws.

Starkwell: Yeah, that’s why.

[...]

The infected seem to be SUPER RABID EXTREME TO THE MAX, also entirely computer animated, which kind of, well, sucks.  Starkwell and Lovelock talked at great lengths about the differences between this film’s infected and those of the earlier adaptations.  They also wouldn’t shut up about how cute the doggy is.  Seriously, did you see when they show him as a puppy??!!?! Come on! It’s totally insane.

[...]

[Doggy gets bit by zombie dogs.]

Lovelock: I thought I couldn’t possibly hate zombie dogs any more then I already did, but they just took our puppy away.

Starkwell: Man, fuck this fucking movie.

[...]

[Neville wakes up, “Shrek” is playing.]

Lovelock: I hate when they show real movies inside of a movie.  It feels wrong.

Starkwell: It’s like product placement.

Lovelock: Imagine if in one movie, they show a scene from another movie, and in that scene, there’s product placement in it.

Starkwell: I’d rather not.

[...]

[Neville gives a Bob Marley lesson to Survivor Girl.]

Lovelock: Do you think if they cast a white guy as Neville they would have used Bob Dylan instead of Bob Marley?

Starkwell: Should we be talking about this?

[...]

[Survivor’s camp in Vermont.]

Lovelock: Vermont is beautiful.

Starkwell: Yeah, zombie plague or not, look at the foliage!

[...]

Although I am sure that faithfulness to the book is thoroughly lacking, Starkwell and Lovelock both agreed that the film did what it set out to do.  I personally think that they would have liked it more if the dog hadn’t died.  Lovelock claims that he had recently been cutting an onion, but I know those were puppy death induced tears.

Day of the Dead: The Need to Feed.

Hot off the heels of the popular “Dawn of the Dead” remake, someone set out to remake “Day of the Dead”.  Steve Miner, the film’s director, is no rookie to the horror genre, with some impressive titles on his resume, most notably, a Lovelock and Starkwell favourite, 1986’s “House”.  They certainly aren’t shy to name drop Romero all over the box, even though he had nothing to do with the film other than make a good movie twenty-five years ago.  The fact that this 2008 version went straight to video is already not a very good sign.  Did I mention that it stars Nick Cannon?  Let’s see what happens.

[...]

[Teenager coughs up snot, resumes making out with girl.]

Lovelock: I think her standards are a little low.

Starkwell: Much like the casting director’s…

[...]

[Mena Suvari character introduction.]

Starkwell: So that’s why she started turning down those "American Pie" movies, to pursue a more serious acting career…

Lovelock: Harsh.

[...]

They developed the characters a little more, but who really cares?  All Lovelock and Starkwell were able to do was make fun of Nick Cannon’s crusty little moustache, his ‘crustache’ if you will.  At one point Lovelock begged the question “Seriously, how old is he supposed to be?  He looks twelve”, to which Starkwell responded “Mena Suvari’s haircut makes her look like a ‘tween.”  Afterwards Lovelock made fun of Starkwell for discussing haircuts and using the word ‘tween.  And they missed a whole chunk of movie.  They didn’t miss much, and they are yet to see anyone that they really want to root for.  But then, as if by magic, people started turning into zombies and instantaneously decaying and running and eating people, so Lovelock and Starkwell decided to pay more attention.

[...]

[Fast zombies leap tall buildings in a single bound and throw grown men around like footballs.]

Lovelock: So when they say remake, they mean it more like… ?

Starkwell: Not a remake.

[...]

Starkwell got up and started wondering how anyone could actually get away with just a bite wound when the zombies seem to “tear through people like the Tasmanian Devil on speed”.  Also, why did the virus suddenly kick in at the same time for every infected person in town?  Why does it work faster on some than on others?  Why do some peoples’ faces immediately decompose when others do not?  Lovelock shushed him, but then was like, “Seriously though, what the fuck?”  So many questions.

[...]

[People running in front of radio station.]

Starkwell: They used the same shot three times now of those three people running.

Lovelock: I thought you said that a good movie should have consistency?

Starkwell: I don’t think you’re following me here…

[...]

[Suvari is being attacked.]

Starkwell: So the zombies have super powers unless they are going after the main character?

Lovelock: Well duh, otherwise she’d die right away.

[...]

[Main character runs over her Mom without blinking.]

Starkwell: Wait, so she doesn’t want to kill the other soldier yet, in case there's a cure or something... but she felt it was ok to explode her mom into a bajillion pieces with her Hummer?  Right in front of her little brother?

Lovelock: UNIT. CORE. GOD. COUNTRY.  Somewhere after all of that, MOM.

[...]

[They find out the truth about Project Wildfire.]

Lovelock: Why is it whenever a character in a movie wants to kill some sleazeball, someone else says “no it’s not worth it.”

Starkwell: I wish someone had said that to us that before we put the DVD in.

[...]

[The outbreak has been thwarted… or has it?]

Starkwell: ...

Lovelock: ...

Starkwell: So... what?

[...]

Military types, horny teenagers, the sleazy guy, the edgy radio host, one-liners, slow-motion deaths, whizzy bullets and ‘splosions.  This was basically a cookie cutter zombie/action/shit film, which just makes the use of the title even more offensive, since Romero’s 1985 epic was anything but.  Miner did a decent job directing, but when you’re handed a terrible screenplay, there’s only so much you can do.  Well, he could have just said NO.  He should have said no.  Both Lovelock and Starkwell agree that they would hate the movie slightly less if it didn’t call itself “Day of the Dead”, but they would still, nonetheless, hate it.

The Serpent and the Rainbow.

Best known for inventing Freddy Krueger, horror titan Wes Craven took a stab at old school zombie folklore in his “based on true events” / “based on a dude’s book” film venture “The Serpent and the Rainbow.”  This one stars Bill Pullman, who you might know as the president from Independence Day or that guy I always confuse with Jeff Daniels.  Starkwell and Lovelock are intrigued by the possibility that any of what they are about to watch actually happened, and eagerly wait for me to press play.

[...]

[Haiti, 1970s.]

Starkwell: Haiti doesn’t look all that happy.  People steal dead bodies.

Lovelock: I don’t know, that guy in the top hat looks pretty happy.

Starkwell: Yeah, he’s waving a gun, I don’t think we’re supposed to like him.

[...]

[Professor Pullman takes magic potion.  Wakes up being chased by a panther and some scary dead people.]

Lovelock: That’s why I never take strange potions from witch doctors.

Starkwell: I think he’s a shaman, and yeah, that’s why.

Lovelock: I think if I had a spirit animal, I’d want it to be a monkey.  No, a giraffe… actually, let me think about it some more.

[...]

[Pharmaceutical company sends him on a mission.]

Starkwell: It’s always the pharmaceutical companies.

Lovelock: Well, yeah… They’re called BIOCORP.  You can’t trust that shit.

[...]

[Professor Pullman meets a zombie.]

Lovelock: Wait, that’s a zombie?

Starkwell: I think that this movie is more grounded in reality than you’re used to.

Lovelock: Reality blows.  Bring on the flesh eaters.  If I wanted reality I’d be at work right now.

[...]

Starkwell watched the story unfold with great enthusiasm.  Lovelock was less enthused, but every time he wanted to make a comment like “where’s the action?” or “where’s the beef?” Starkwell would shush him like a librarian on crack.  Is there any other kind?  However, they both make fun of Professor Pullman’s philosophical narration every chance that they get.

[...]

Starkwell: This movie already has had at least two too many of those “thank goodness, it was only a dream” moments.

Lovelock: Can you really ever have too many of those?

Starkwell: Yes.  Yes you can.  This movie does.

[...]

[Really long sex scene.]

Starkwell: Apparently waterfalls and a large crowd put Professor Pullman in the mood.

Lovelock: She certainly seems to be enjoying it.  In slow motion.

Starkwell: Who has sex in a cave?

Lovelock: Probably cavemen.

[...]

[Professor Pullman cons the con man.]

Starkwell: He’s a doctor and a magician?  No wonder she couldn’t resist boning him in a dirty cave.

Lovelock: Plus, his hair is phenomenal.

[...]

I was unable to follow their conversation for a little while, because I passed out when the crazy police drove a huge nail through Professor Pullman’s scrotum.  I think I faintly heard Lovelock saying “good luck doing it cave style now” before I blacked out.  When I woke up, they were repeating the line “hey, it just went through the scrotum, right?” over and over again, since, as it turns out, Professor Pullman is a pretty hard dude.

[...]

[Another dream sequence followed by dramatic wakeup shot.]

Starkwell: That’s the sweatiest wakeup yet.

Lovelock: Hey, I mean, it just went through the scrotum, right?

[Finds severed head next to him.]

Starkwell: I think I would prefer the nightmare…

Lovelock: Hey, I mean, it just went through the scrotum, right?

[...]

[Back in Boston, Professor Pullman is attacked at a dinner party by the hostess.]

Lovelock: Voodoo or not, I think that’s how I would react to that boring ass conversation as well.

Starkwell: Wow, he just bails on the party?  She’s still seizing and screaming.  What a dick.  Considering this is all his fault, the least he could do is stick around and see if she’s ok.

Lovelock: They put a wallet in her mouth, she’ll be fine.

[...]

[Zombie powder blown in face.  Pullman is pronounced dead.  Eventually, he comes back.]

Lovelock: Man, they stole that shit from “In Like Flint”.

Starkwell: It’s not really the same thing.

Lovelock: Purple alert!

[...]

The ending of the movie was pretty spectacular, full of historical facts, supernatural terrors, and nail in scrotum payback.  But Starkwell and Lovelock didn’t really react at all.  They said they were waiting to see if there would be another shot of him waking up, all sweaty, thinking “thank goodness, it was only a dream.”  It never came.  Good news for Haiti, but bad news for his scrotum.

Land of the Dead.

Considering he invented this shit, you would think people would have a little more respect for his more recent work.  Is it all as bad as people say?  Has he become a mockery of himself?  Let us, myself, along with Starkwell and Lovelock, find out.  This copy of George A. Romero’s 2005 return to the genre “Land of the Dead” came as a two disc set along with the Zack Snyder “Dawn of the Dead” remake.  It’s an extended uncut version not seen in theaters.  But we didn’t see it in the theaters anyways.

[...]

[Anytown U.S.A., the zombies are everywhere.]

Starkwell: Zombies playing tuba and trombone?

Lovelock: More like the Band of the Dead…

Starkwell: While it is refreshing to see slow walkers… communicating and thinking zombies?  I don’t know.

Lovelock: If Romero says they can, then they can.

Starkwell: Zombies like fireworks?

Lovelock: If Romero says they do, then they do.

Starkwell: Zombies have feelings?

Lovelock: If Romero says… aw fuck, I don’t know… I’m a little scared now.

Starkwell: Zombie using guns?

Lovelock: We may be witnessing another “Phantom Menace” here…

[...]

As worried as they were, the movie showed great promise, it had solid acting, and the type of proper zombie action that we all know and love.  It also had good characters, which is usually one major player that separates good zombie movies from terribly shitty ones.  The one bad part about the characters is that, as Starkwell noted, they all have “the dumbest fucking names I’ve ever heard.”

[...]

[Futuristic slums and anarchy.]

Lovelock: I think that in the future, the important slum lords wear hats.

Starkwell: It does sort of seem like that happens a lot.

Lovelock: Also, the women wear fishnet stockings and DON’T look inbred AT ALL.

[...]

[Puppet show.]

Starkwell: Did they just say zombie? They’re not supposed to say zombie.

Lovelock: Weak.

[...]

[Cholo asks for money…]

Starkwell: How is it possible that there is still money?  Why would it still be useful?

Lovelock: Maybe when he says ‘Five million dollars’ he really means ‘LOTS OF SANDWICHES.’

[...]

At one point they introduce three new characters for no reason.  Each is more ridiculous than the one before.  One actually says “call me Motown.”  I wish I was joking about that.  Lovelock said “I’ll just call you lame, and hopefully a few scenes from now, dead.”

[...]

[Kaufman gives a speech to his board of directors.]

Starkwell: Dennis Hopper kind of phoned this one in.

Lovelock: Why is there always a character that has a pet rat?

Starkwell: Also, he rides a skateboard.

[...]

[Zombies emerge from the water.]

Starkwell: Why would they be taking a breath?

Lovelock: Most likely for the same reason that it was necessary to show two women making out.

[...]

[Fat Hawaiian punches girl out.]

Starkwell: How about a nice Hawaiian punch?!?

Lovelock: Call me Motown.

[...]

[Motown gets eaten.]

Starkwell: Call me Motown.

[...]

Starkwell and Lovelock went quiet for a while, as the action picked up and the gore levels went off the charts.  They both yelled out “TOM SAVINI” at one point.  For no real reason, they repeated “Call me Motown” a few times as well.

[...]

[Zombies kill restaurant goers.]

Lovelock: That’s why I never sit on the terrace.

Starkwell: Yeah, that’s why.

Lovelock: Well also, sometimes there are people smoking out there.

[...]

[Main African American zombie looks all intense and shit.]

Lovelock: Romero may as well have given him the ability to say stuff like “Damn” and “Bitch, please” and “Aw hell no!”

Starkwell: It would certainly be less annoying than that moan of his.

[...]

Look, the movie has its problems, but Starkwell and Lovelock both approve of the film.  It has some great ideas, and although not all were executed perfectly, the movie is an overall success, even if the zombies learn how to feel and make car bombs and shit.

C.H.U.D.

Some movies come along and change everything.  I don’t think that 1984’s “C.H.U.D.” was such a movie, really.  But it did give us the expression CHUD, so there is that to think about.  The film was directed by Douglas Cheek, who apparently never directed anything else again.  Maybe he set the bar too high for himself, or maybe, just maybe, it is so bad he retired forever.  I’m anxious to let Lovelock and Starkwell loose on this Anchor Bay release.

[...]

[Woman gets pulled into a sewer by a nasty hand.]

Lovelock: That’s why you’re never supposed to go near a sewer that has steam coming out of it.

Starkwell: Wait, you’re not?  Oh and, yeah, that’s why.

[...]

[Cop girl rolls her eyes.]

Starkwell: She looked at the camera.

Lovelock: Thrice.

[...]

John Heard is incredible.  They said it, and I agree.

[...]

[Cop stops following them because it’s too smelly.]

Starkwell: That’s some great police work…

Lovelock: No wonder the CHUDs are on the rampage.

[...]

When they revealed the homeless guy’s wound, Lovelock regretted that he was eating a smooth and spicy green curry.

[...]

[Bosh and Rev venture into the sewer.]

Starkwell: Finally, a cop that isn’t afraid of a little smelly.

Lovelock: Do you mean the smell of the sewer or of the Reverend?

[...]

[CHUD eats man.]

Lovelock: Should this really count as a zombie movie?

Starkwell: They look gross and eat people.  So, that's definitely a start.

Lovelock: That girl looked at the camera again.

Starkwell: That nuclear expert guy kind of looks like a zombie...

Lovelock: You think the Ninja Turtles got their idea from this?

Starkwell: You mean the people who created the Ninja Turtles?

Lovelock: No one created them, idiot, they’re not real.  Pfff…

Starkwell: I hate you.

[...]

Daniel Stern is incredible.  They said it, and I agree.

[...]

[Guy in polo shirt swallows Rev’s quarter, for no reason.]

Starkwell: What the hell was the point of that?

Lovelock: I guess if you can afford Lacoste polo shirts, you don’t mind wasting a few quarters.

Starkwell: I don't think they were as expensive back then.

Lovelock: Like you know.

Starkwell: And you do?

[...]

[EPA guy has a plan.]

Starkwell: How can you gas the sewer?

Lovelock: Do you have a better idea?

[...]

Starkwell: I think they just threw dirt into Daniel Stern’s face before every scene.

Lovelock: Probably helped him get into character.

[...]

[While unclogging drain with coat hanger blood spits everywhere.]

Lovelock: That’s why I always just leave drains clogged.

Starkwell: So that’s why I always have to unclog the toilet?

[...]

Then John Goodman was in the movie for five seconds.

[...]

[Kid pulls on doorknob.]

Starkwell: If something was mysteriously banging on the basement door, no kid in all of history would ever pull on the handle.

Lovelock: Well, no smart kid anyways.

[...]

[Homeless man who was previously bitten has gone CHUD.]

Lovelock: Zombie movie!  Officially!

[...]

[Girl kills CHUD.]

Starkwell: Are we really supposed to believe that she could actually cut through a CHUD neck?

Lovelock: Are we really supposed to believe that she could be a perfume and / or undiewears model?

[...]

[Van’s tire dips into manhole, van explodes.]

Starkwell: Wait… what?

Lovleock: I’d hate to drive in Boston if a pothole really could do that.

[...]

Great cast, great story, great action. Cannibalistic Humanoid Underground Dwellers for the win.  They’ve asked me to find C.H.U.D. II, especially since it’s unclear what really happens to the CHUDs at the end of this.