By Jake Jamieson


Shaun of the Dead
2004, Rogue Pictures

I’m going to get the pump-licking started early in this one and say that Shaun of the Dead was my favorite movie of 2004. From the British creators of Spaced!, this rom-com-zom (romantic comedy with zombies) has something for everyone, and every single person I’ve recommended it to, even the most skeptical, has walked away happy. My wife, who hates zombie movies, the British, and watching movies more than once, saw this in the theater and has seen it three more times since it came out on DVD. Does that say anything for you?

Shaun’s life goes from dull and vaguely disappointing to genuinely shitty when his girlfriend dumps him and the dead start coming back to life, all on the same day. After a few run-ins with some no-longer-dead types, Shaun and his friend Ed decide that they have to gather the people they love and get somewhere they can feel secure, have a smoke and a pint, and wait out the invasion. After some brainstorming, they decide on the Winchester, the pub where they’ve wasted countless hours.

One thing to keep in mind is that just because this is a brilliantly funny zombie comedy, it’s not a spoof of zombie movies. Don’t go into it expecting Scary Movie or some other piece of Wayans brother dogshit. And also don’t think you must already have seen every other movie that ends in “of the Dead” to enjoy this one. The directors have seen those flicks plenty of times, and there are enough references to choke a zombie horse, but you’ll be able to enjoy yourself without knowing the first thing about the shambling dead.

Best Line:
“Who died and made you fucking king of the zombies?”

Recommended if:

• You like any two of the ingredients in a rom-com-zom.
• You know who “Clyde” is from Every Which Way But Loose
• You wish more zombie movies featured cricket bats

Not recommended if:

• You’re offended by one or two uses of the N-word, the C-word, and the Z-word.
• You’re dead.

****

Bubba Ho-tep
2003, Vitagraph Films

Bruce Campbell is the king of the horror comedy. A quick peek at his filmography, from Evil Dead 2 to Army of Darkness to Herbie the Love Bug (I haven’t seen it ... I’m just guessing), proves the man knows his way around scares and laughs. I’m a big fan, so when I heard that the chinned one was going to play Elvis … I barely knew how to contain myself.

Campbell is Elvis, who under the guise of an impersonator named Sebastian Haff, has been wasting away for the last twenty years in an East Texas rest home. Nobody respects or believes in him; not the nurses, not the visitors, and not even himself. He has consigned himself to fade away, shuffling around his room with a walker and obsessing about the growth on his pecker. Then, some strange things start happening in the nursing home. Elvis hears strange sounds, residents start dying off more quickly than usual, and he’s attacked by a huge scarab beetle, or as he calls it, “one big bitch bug.”

Elvis teams up with another resident of the home, one John F. Kennedy (played by Ossie Davis, who, when reminded that the real Kennedy was white, retorts “They dyed me this color!”) The two men do some investigating and discover their nursing home has fallen victim to an ancient Egyptian mummy who landed here when a bus taking him on a museum tour crashed nearby. This redneck mummy sucks souls out of the residents, and does it through a very uncomfortable place. The men then hatch a plan to put an end to Bubba Ho-tep.

Best Line:
“I'm thinking with sand here!”

Recommended if:

• These four words mean anything to you: “Bruce Campbell as Elvis.”
• You’d like to know how to write “Pharaoh gobbles donkey goobers” and “Cleopatra does the nasty” in hieroglyphics.

Not recommended if:

• I might be biased (OK, I’m biased), but I honestly can’t think of a single reason why anyone wouldn’t want to see this movie. Did you read that synopsis!? Elvis and JFK vs a fucking mummy!

****

Zero Effect
1998, Sony Pictures Entertainment

Bill Pullman is Daryl Zero, the world’s greatest private investigator, recluse and basket case. With the help of his long-suffering Boy Friday and translator Steve Arlo (Ben Stiller, in a role that made me actually like him), Zero solves the unsolvable and finds the un-findable. Suave, charming, and debonair while on a case, whether it’s the “The Case of the Man with Mismatched Shoelaces” or “The Case of the Hired Gun Who Made Too Many Mistakes,” Zero is your man. But when he’s hired by a millionaire to help him find a set of keys with a gold Swiss Army knife attached, Zero becomes embroiled in a blackmail case the likes of which he has never seen.

This is the movie that began my love affair with Bill Pullman. Well, we haven’t actually consummated it yet … stupid restraining order. I mean, I’ve always liked him. You have to like a guy who can do Spaceballs and The Serpent and the Rainbow back to back. But I’d never paid much attention to him. If for no other reason, watch this movie so you can see Pullman unplugged, chewing up scenery, guzzling Tab, and solving mysteries.

Best Line:
“Now, a few words on looking for things. When you go looking for something specific, your chances of finding it are very bad. Because, of all the things in the world, you're only looking for one of them. When you go looking for anything at all, your chances of finding it are very good. Because of all the things in the world, you're sure to find some of them.”

Recommended if:

• You’d like to hear the sexiest man alive scream “You're watching whales? Fuck the whales!”
• You’re a fan of Tony Shalhoub in Monk; Pullman did the neurotic detective who can’t keep his shit together first, and I think he did it funnier.
• You like a movie that bends genres … is it a comedy? A mystery? A love story? In fact, yes.

Not recommended if:

• You don’t like quirky humor. There’s a watershed moment when Steve Arlo is letting himself into Daryl Zero’s apartment. If you don’t laugh at the ritual he goes through to get in, you can shut the movie off, because you’re not going to like anything from here on out.

****

Tapeheads
1988, Anchor Bay Entertainment

This was one of my favorite movies in high school, and when I tell people about it they can’t believe it’s got the cast it has and they’ve never heard of it. John Cusack. Tim Robbins. And they’re just two of the big names. The cameos are amazing, and I’m not just talking “Big in ‘88” names either. Does the name Don “Soul Train” Cornelius ring a bell? How about a little band called Fishbone? Also appearing are Martha Quinn, Bob Goldthwait, “Weird” Al Yankovic, Ted Nugent, Doug E. Fresh, Courtney Love, Lyle Alzado. Granted, most of them are blink-and-you’ll-miss-it cameos, but some of them really bring a tear to my eye.

Oh yeah, the plot. That’s pretty cool too. The movie takes place in ’88, when two fresh-faced youths (Robbins and Cusack) lose their security guard jobs and accidentally end up as music video producers. They get in over their heads when they are booked to do a live satellite broadcast of a Menudo concert, but decide to use the satellite uplink to destroy the career of a Republican presidential hopeful.

Best Line:
“Roses are red. Violets are blue. The Russians have satellite laser weapons. Why can't we, too?”

Recommended if:

• You’d laugh if you saw Jello Biafra playing an FBI agent and bragging about “what we did to Jello Biafra.”
• You want to hear a Devo song called “Baby Doll” as lip-synched by Cube Squared, a foreign band that’s “sold more records in Sweden than ABBA.”
• You've been waiting for someone to produce a music video where a middle-aged man raps about Chicken & Waffles.

Not Recommended if:

• You read the synopsis and asked yourself “Who the hell are Martha Quinn and Menudo?”
• You wish producer Michael Nesmith would just stop making movies and go back to singing already.
• Seeing John Cusack play a sleaze ball would like, totally creep you out because you’re like totally in love with him and you wish he would play Peter Gabriel on your lawn like he did in Say Anything.

****

Ghost Dog: The Way of the Samurai
1999, Studio Canal

Forrest Whitaker plays Ghost Dog, a hit man who lives by the anachronistic ways of the samurai as he works for a faltering Mob family in an unnamed city. An outcast and a loner, Ghost Dog keeps pigeons, interacts with his only two friends in the world, and tries to be loyal to the biddings sent to him by his chosen master. When Ghost Dog kills the right person in front of the wrong witness, the members of the family take it upon themselves to try to get revenge. Adhering to the samurai code, Ghost Dog struggles with how to get his vengeance and retain his honor.

Director Jim Jarmusch wrote this part for Forrest Whitaker. He wasn’t going to make the movie if Whitaker wasn’t available for the role. But the movie did come together, and Whitaker puts in a great performance. Another plus is that RZA from Wu-Tang did the soundtrack, which is great bare-bones hip hop. Then the movie came out and like 12 people saw it.

Best Line:
“‘If a warrior's head were to be suddenly cut off, he should still be able to perform one more action with certainty.’ What the fuck does that mean?”

Recommended if:

• You’ve been wondering when they would finally make a movie featuring both Jefferson from Fast Times at Ridgemont High AND quotes from the Hagakure (the book of the samurai).
• You’re a fan of indie-minded hit man flicks like The Professional.

Not recommended if:

• You’re more of an Assassins kind of person.
• You think movies blending inner city and Asian cultures began and ended with Berry Gordy’s The Last Dragon.

****

Shakes the Clown
1992, IRS Media

Shakes (Bobcat Goldthwait, who also wrote and directed the flick) is a party clown who parties too much. He claims that he’s just having a lot of fun with his drinking right now, but the booze is getting in the way of his job and his relationship with his girlfriend, Judy (played by Julie Brown). Shakes loses out on a cushy television gig, which sends him on a binge that causes him to lose his job and be framed for murder by his rival, Binky. Shakes loses everything and has to go into hiding as a mime, which is something no self-respecting party clown would do. This movie has an all-star cast including Adam Sandler and Tom Kenny (who went on to Sponge Bob Square Pants fame), and features cameos from Robin Williams and Florence Henderson.

Billed as the “Citizen Kane of alcoholic clown movies,” Shakes the Clown is a scatological dark comedy that touches on serious issues including alcoholism and relationships. It also deals with another serious issue that’s close to my heart: the clown food chain. You know, the heartbreaking cycle of violence where coked-up rodeo clowns beat up boozed-up party clowns, who take out their frustration on mimes whose only crime is that they want to get out of that damned box.

Best Line:
“Oh, yeah? Well, the only show YOU could ever star in would be a show called the ... Not ... Funny ... DIARRHEA CLUB!”

Recommended if:

• No matter how much time you spend at the Clown Forum, you just can’t get enough.
• You’ve ever wanted to see a little kid pee on a clown’s head.
• You’ve ever wondered what a one-night stand with Florence Henderson would be like.

Not recommended if:

• Your hatred of clowns won’t allow it.

****

Constantine
Constantine: 2005, Warner Brothers

A major player in the battle between Heaven and Hell, John Constantine can see the supernatural, and spends his days performing exorcisms, sending loose demons back to their home. For this and other reasons, he is known in his circles as the only soul the devil would come personally to collect. After being diagnosed with a terminal cigarette-related illness, he gets mixed up with Angela Dodson, whose twin sister has apparently committed suicide and who desperately wants to see what John spent a good part of his life trying to avoid. Throw into the mix some angels, demons, a mystical shotgun, the guy who played Juba in Gladiator, a holy relic from the crucifixion and a bunch of occult hoodoo, and it’s an entertaining ride.

You might think it’s a stretch to include such a recent movie in this roundup, but if you’re anything like me (which I pray you aren’t) you were against this movie from the second you heard it was coming out. I’m a big fan of Hellblazer, the DC comic on which this movie is based, and while I’m not one of those guys who wants the book translated shot for shot onto the screen, come on. They changed Constantine’s home city from London, a place that defines the character, to L.A. On top of that, they were having Ted “Theodore” Logan play a character that was originally based on Sting. Upon seeing trailer, however, my mind was changed. Once I was able to separate the movie from the source material, I saw that it was a fun flick that tried to touch on the big issues. I went, I watched it, I had a good time.

Best Line:
“God's a kid with an ant farm, lady. He's not planning anything.”

Recommended if:

• You’re a sucker for grand good vs. evil themes in quasi-Catholic trappings.
• You like a fast-paced action-thrillers with horror themes, even if it’s 15-20 minutes too long.
• You’ve always wanted to see Karl Hungus from the Big Lebowski play Satan.

Not Recommended if:

• You’re a rabid fan of the comic book Hellblazer.
• You think Keanu Reeves will always be Ted, dude!
• You have lung cancer

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