The Coed and the Zombie Stoner (Review)

December 17, 2014ByTars Tarkas

The Coed and the Zombie Stoner

2014
Written by Scotty Mullen
Directed by Glenn R. Miller

This happened all the time when I was a meter maid!

Zombies! Frat parties! Nude chicks! Drugs! Crass jokes! The Coed and the Zombie Stoner is a modern mish-mashterpiece of crazy that won’t settle for just being ridonkulous. Much as Dark Helmet sends Spaceball 1 into ludicrous speed, The Coed and the Zombie Stoner makes its own pattern of plaid, and thankfully is wearing its helmet!

The Coed and the Zombie Stoner begins with nude chicks and a zombie attack, and then backs up to the Warm Bodies-esque love tale, by way of the Mary Jane. Marijuana is the cause of and solution to the zombie menace, as the weed is partially responsible for the experiment gone awry that causes the zombies, as well as keeping the zombies calm so they don’t attack people.

Special breakout performances from Jamie Noel as Bambi, the sorority bitch from hell! In a most excellent scene she drops her own version of the cunt-punch email that made the internet rounds, and you believe in your heart of hearts that her character would gleefully threaten such a thing.

This is a disaster! Ziggy deserves better than page 3!

Lena Young and Dora Pereli as Bibi and Bunny, goofy sorority besties who can’t seem to keep their clothes on. I’ve been around enough to know you have to be very good to act that goofy and ditzy and energetic without it coming off a totally fake, and they nail their performances. Even Chrissy joins in on their sorority chants in the middle of crisis, it’s how infectiously charismatic these two are. Those suds in the opening scene? Spontaneously appeared because of how bubbly these two are!

Zombie purists will get annoyed that the Romero rules aren’t being enforced, but zombie purists are annoying, so good. The rules seem more like the Return of the Living Dead rules, except pot mellows the zombies out. The zombies retain much of their minds, and even stage elaborate scenarios and entertaining games as they devour their prey

The Coed and the Zombie Stoner is like the 1980s college flicks and zombie flicks crashed into each other, then were bathed in 2010s sensibilities. There are references all over the place to other films, and at times it seems we jump right into a scene from one of them. The Coed and the Zombie Stoner is a clearinghouse for toilet humor. Not just the actual humor involving toilets and bodily functions, but within the universe. The frats and sororities have provocative names like KY House, DIK Frat, and even ZBE Frat, the fraternity that foreshadows. Christine Nguyen cameos as a librarian, and Mindy Robinson has a bit part as Nurse Escandalo. So there is just so much fun going on, let the party begin!

This is a weird reboot of Captain N: The Game Master

	Chrissy Chrysanthemum (Catherine Annette) – Brilliant college student, sorority sister, and researcher who talks and talks and talks and talks. Her constant talking leaves her without a boyfriend and in danger of losing her scholarship, until she meets a nice zombie guy who listens.
	Rigo Fabian (Grant O’Connell) – Secret zombie who lives in one of the labs, he’s from back in the class of ’85, yet only Dr. Avon knows he’s still around until he starts dating Chrissy. Is a nice guy zombie except for his zombie temper. was a brilliant researcher before the accident.
	Bambi (Jamie Noel) – The Queen Bee of Sorority Crazy, Bambi is a force of nature that destroys all in her path. Anyone who dares put things out of place gets demolished and humiliated, and her usual target is Chrissy.
	Bibi (Lena Young) – Super energetic sorority sister who spends most of the film forgetting to wear clothes and hanging out with her BFF, Bunny.
	Bunny (Dora Pereli) – Super energetic sorority sister who spends most of the film forgetting to wear clothes and hanging out with her BFF, Bibi.
	Spike (Andrew Clements) – Chrissy’s brother and local DJ. Has an unfortunate encounter with a zombie’s hand.
	P.J. (Ben Whalen) – Chrissy’s ex-boyfriend who dumps her right at the beginning of the film for Bambi, and then spends the whole time acting like the gigantic douche he is.
	Dr. Pier Avon (Louis J. Dezsoran) – Chrissy’s boss at the university and the only person who knew about Rigo all these years before he is introduced to the rest of the school.
	Brad (Aaron Caleb) – Nerdish frat guy who can’t catch a break, or a girl, though has caught a cold sore. Gets in touch with his feminine side.
	Romero the cat (???) – A very naughty cat who is also a pot zombie as well as a namecheck reference to zombie movies.

The car was already like this, the montage was them just changing outfits!

InMovie Reviews, Ugly

A Cookie Cutter Christmas (Review)

December 16, 2014ByTars Tarkas

A Cookie Cutter Christmas

2014
Written by Barbara Kymlicka
Directed by Christie Will Wolf

Hi, I’m the Thicke that doesn’t sing rapey songs! Watch me eat lots of cookies!

If you enjoy scenes of Alan Thicke eating various cookies, you will love A Cookie Cutter Christmas! For everyone who isn’t one of those four people, let me tell you about A Cookie Cutter Christmas. Hallmark delivers a tale of female rivalry that becomes a Christmas miracle because that’s just how they roll. Thus, A Cookie Cutter Christmas has us follow a woman who constantly loses to her rival in a battle for the only eligible guy in town as well as learning how to cook. The rival aspect might turn some people off, but it’s not that unusual for life. Some people are constantly comparing themselves to others and have to be better than them. The keeping up with the Jonses mentality can be self-destructive, cause financial ruin, and it’s also pretty annoying when someone keeps beating you again and again. That might not seem very Christmas, but like it or not, competition is a big part of Christmas. Displays, gifts, cards, arguing with relatives over Christmas dinner, the true meanings are often lost, and those with competitive streaks can get sucked right in.

Christie Reynolds (Erin Karkow) has been competing with Penny Miller (Miranda Frigon) since they were children, Penny stealing her verses in a Christmas pageant long ago and the rivalry living on decades later with both women as teachers at the same elementary school forever engaged in proxy battles. Penny Miller seems to win almost all of the conflicts, her students raise more money and she even organizes the big Christmas fund raiser now. Thus, Christie is in a down point in her life, forever stuck in second place.

Worst pot cookies ever!

Enter hunky single dad James Thompson (David Haydn-Jones), whose wife thoughtfully died off long enough ago that dating again is a possibility. His daughter Lily (Genea Charpentier) ends up enrolled in Christie’s class instead of Penny’s, but soon both women are working for the affection of the new hunk in town. James is super charity man, having moved to their small town specifically to start a charitable organization, thus now Penny alters the big fund raiser to help him out. Penny also organizes a bake off competition at the school, the winning teacher getting a fat sack of cash to use for a class trip. Christie enters the contest, both because her students would love a field trip and because it’s another thing to compete with Penny in. The only problem is that Christie cannot cook. At all. Her mom, Bev Reynolds (Laura Soltis), tells her point blank to her face that her food sucks. In the first round of the competition Christie doesn’t even get her food cooked before judging! Thus she’s going to need a crash course in baking, and guess which new hunky single dad in town once wanted to be a chef?

I like the Christmas lights in the shape of a hamburger in the background!

InMovie Reviews, Ugly

The Nine Lives of Christmas (Review)

December 15, 2014ByTars Tarkas

The Nine Lives of Christmas

2014
Written by Nancey Silvers
Based on the book by Sheila Roberts
Directed by Mark Jean

Hello? Morris auditions?

Christmas is that time of year when one thinks of cat based romance tales (or tails), and finally someone has made a film about the thoughts that every normal person has during the season. The Nine Lives of Christmas is a nice fun film that lets the charisma of the actors and lead cat overcome a weaker script. At points things come together a bit too easily, which lessens the impacts of the personal insecurities both Zachary and Marilee are feeling. But those objections are largely inconsequential as the film is charming enough to rise above that to deliver some holiday cheer.

The best part of The Nine Lives of Christmas is that it is pretty much a reverse Garfield movie. Instead of a sassy fat cat, Ambrose is a sweet friendly cat. Instead of a dorky cartoonist, Zachary Stone is a dreamy firefighter. Instead of a vet who constantly rejects his advances, Marilee White is a vet student whose life goals give her the excuses she needs to reject a social life. And the cat doesn’t talk. Before I knew anything about the film except for a rough plot outline, it was already the film from Hallmark’s 12 Movies of Christmas event that I was most interested in.

The Cat that Defeated Superman!

	Zachary Stone (Brandon Routh) – Firefighter who lives the single lifestyle of not wanting to get married or even have a serious relationship. He’s the envy of some of his coworkers, but Zachary’s habit of doing good deeds results in him getting a stray cat that plants the seeds of responsibility, and spending all his time with Marilee plants the seeds of romance. Also, he’s freaking Superman!
	Marilee White (Kimberly Sustad) – Marilee White is a sleepy but brilliant vet school student who has no time for a love life, what with all the studying and the working at a pet supply store, where she is the designated employee that deals with the problem customers. Her apartment complex is run by one of those evil landlords who are all up in your business, and if you have a pet, you are immediately evicted, which probably violates the law but will be important for plot purposes. Marilee does have a clandestine cat named Queenie, and Marilee spends most of her down time dodging questions from her friends and sister about when she’s going to get herself a boyfriend.
	Ambrose (???) – Ambrose is a smart cat looking for a home, and Zachary saves him from a dog, so now he’s his new owner. That’s how it works in Ambrose’s world. Ambrose finds keys, understands complex human emotions, and gets adopted as the official firehouse cat. He’s also the catalist that cause Zachary to rethink his unattached lifestyle. Becomes best buds with Queenie.
	Queenie (???) – Marilee’s secret cat that she can talk to to unwind after a long day or work and study. Queenie is against her apartment rules, but once evicted she can move into a spare room Zachary has.
	Jaclyn (Stephanie Bennett) – Marilee’s sister, Marilee raised her after their parents died, Jaclyn is now a successful real estate agent along with her husband, and is now focused on finding her sister a man.
	Blair (Chelsea Hobbs) – Zachary’s spoiled model girlfriend who hates hates hates pets because they interfere with her lifestyle of pretending she’s going to leave the country for a few weeks. Gets people fired and tosses out Ambrose as well. As you can imagine, she’s not the heroine of the film. Chelsea Hobbs is also in Confessions of a Go-Go Girl
	Ray (Sean Tyson) – A goofy fireman who knows the score with regards to Zachary’s metamorphosis into being capable of love.
	Mark (Dalias Blake) – A married fireman who lives vicariously through Zachary’s lifestyle and becomes concerned when he starts showing actual feelings.
	Chief Sam (Gregory Harrison) – The wise mentor fireman who loves cats (his wife is allergic) and saved Zachary from a burning house when he was a kid.
	Sarah (Jen Cheon) – Marilee’s friend who also is obsessed with getting her a date, even though she can’t get a date.

Screw this, I’m driving to Vegas!

InTelevision Reviews

Sleepy Hollow S02E09 – “Mama”

December 11, 2014ByTars Tarkas

Fake! This is faker than that “Moon landing” footage the government released!

Sleepy Hollow “Mama”
Written by Damian Kindler
Directed by Wendey Stanzler

Just wait until we find out our dad is also a ghost!

Sleepy Hollow raises the bar this season with a disturbingly great episode that features some frank depictions of mental illness and suicide, in addition to having demons and ghosts running around. Somehow the balancing act works just fine, and the added heart-string tugs of Abbie and Jenny’s mom being one of the ghosts leads to some great bonding and background information about the Mills sisters.

What we do know of Abbie and Jenny’s mom before this episode wasn’t much. We know she has issues and was eventually committed to an asylum (the responding officer has become the new Sheriff), and Abbie and Jenny were then dumped into the foster system, leading to their rift. We know she had died, I can’t remember if it was specifically stated that she killed herself, but I think so. And because of all the strange and spooky stuff that has happened on the series, it is understood if not specifically stated that she might have been less crazy than it seemed. That turns out to be true, and we get to see a whole lot more of Lori Mills, including interactions with her daughters as they grew up as well as the spectral version running around the asylum.

My favorite part of this episode is them instantly recognizing what this random jumble means!

Patient bodies are piling up at Tarrytown, the psychiatric hospital that Frank Irving is currently staying at and Jenny Mills and Lori Mills are former patients of. Three bodies in three days, all of which are suicides. Abbie is specifically assigned by Sheriff Reyes because of her knowledge of dealing with weird events, as demonstrated by the doomsday cult she helped bring in. Her family connection to the place is also a plus, and it means Jenny will be along to help, as she’s familiar with the location.

Ichabod is MIA because he has a cold, which leads to some cute character moments and him mentioning that he fought at Saratoga while having dysentery. But he’s no match for being sneakily drugged by Nick Hawley, who tags along. A view of the video of the latest suicide shows the room wasn’t empty when he died, there was someone in the corner. Thanks to the magic of the cameras having a night view mode (Enhance! ENHANCE!) we see the ghost of Lori Mills chanting in the corner!

Why did mom want us to watch this video of a cat playing a keyboard???

InBad, Movie Reviews

Superman: Unbound (Review)

December 8, 2014ByTars Tarkas

Superman: Unbound

2013
Screenplay by Bob Goodman
Based on Superman: Brainiac by Geoff Johns and Gary Frank
Directed by James Tucker

“You can’t control a living thing without destroying what’s alive about it” — Zor-El

That quote is key for Superman Unbound, as Superman deals with a new threat to Earth, a threat from Krypton’s past that threatens the galaxy at large in addition to his adoptive home. Brainiac travels the universe capturing cities in bottles and then destroying their planet of origin, in an attempt to absorb all the knowledge in the universe. In order to prevent new knowledge from existing, Brainiac keeps the cities in the same state they were when they were captured. No one ages, everything stays the same, they are trapped in purgatory. As you can imagine, Superman is not okay with this fate befalling Earth, nor is he fine with leaving the lost Kryptonian capital of Krandor as a bottle decoration in Brainiac’s ship.

Superman: Unbound is based on Superman: Brainiac by Geoff Johns and Gary Frank. Brainiac presented here is a cold, calculating monster that is an unstoppable force in the galaxy. He’s been at it for decades, adding city after city to his collection and leaving a trail of death and destruction in his wake. Brainiac brings up echo of the Borg, as he arrives in a lone ship (though his is shaped like a black skull), his robot troops adapt to the local defenses and absorb the knowledge of his victims. They both carve out cities from the ground, and Brainiac is more machine parts than organic at this point. But he’s also just one guy, as opposed to a collective consciousness. The motivations are similar but also different.

We begin with seemingly normal situations on Earth, massive violence in Metropolis (committed, they say, because Superman will obviously be busy with an earthquake in South America that happened a bit ago!) The heavily armed thugs manage the best the surprisingly militarized Metropolis police, but what they don’t bank on is Supergirl showing up to ruin their fun. Lois Lane (who volunteered to be their hostage) provides the snark as Supergirl rips through their defenses, joined by Superman, who faster than a speeding bulleted his way back to the US in time to take out the last of the bad dudes.

InTelevision Reviews

Sleepy Hollow S02E08 – “Heartless”

December 7, 2014ByTars Tarkas

The truth about Smuckers!

Sleepy Hollow “Heartless”
Written by Albert Kim
Directed by David Boyd

I just want to be like that scene from Temple of Doom!

Sleepy Hollow takes steps forward and steps backwards in an episode that seems like it is on a way to make things cool again, and then tosses it all away with some ridiculous stuff that puts the awful Ichabod and Katrina are having relationship issues thing back on track. Also there is an evil baby, but that’s not the focus this week, it’s a Succubus, who is running around chomping on people who have hidden desires, in order to feed souls to the evil baby. Souls are florescent pink, btw, which means they are probably strawberry flavored. Yummy!

We start with things all cool, with Ichabod and Katrina watching a Bachelor ripoff and arguing about love and who is the guy’s real favorite. They also mention rebuilding their trust. But Henry Parrish is up to no good again, this time using a heart in a jar to summon a nude lady! No, Fox hasn’t yet fulfilled the prophecy from The Simpsons and become a hardcore porn station, Henry just summoned a succubus. She goes out and quickly finds a nerdy victim at a club, easily seducing him to the back of his car for some soul-sucking. And I don’t mean sex.

So the Horseman of War’s defense was that kid’s Halloween game where you stick your hand in a jar of peeled grapes?

Damn, the Succubus is going to wipe out all the tech workers from Sleepy Hollow, preventing the city from cashing in on the Web 3.0 economy and reduce the annual tax revenue by 0.7%! Diabolical!

Oh, wait, she’s just killing dudes and sucking out their souls, which she later barfs into a jar. No problems here, kill away!

The Succubus is played by Caroline Ford, who does a good job considering she has to become a different person each time she seduces someone, to become their heart’s desire of the perfect woman. She also goes full heavy metal demon babe at a few points, complete with giant horns.

Oh, yeah, that hits the spot!

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