A special treat! Two movie reviews for the same low price! Same low price for you, anyway. For me, the cost has been incalculable.
One is a movie where "luck" is a combination of a superpower and a communicable disease. Sort of like x-ray vision combined with herpes (and I don't know why I would think about those two things together when discussing a Lindsay Lohan movie). The other is a movie about a dead chicken possessed by Satan, who has returned to earth to have sex. I'll try not to get them confused.
You're asking why I did this to myself. A fair question. I see a lot of bad movies, but this might look like a cry for help. Let me explain, and we can plan my intervention later.
I saw Just My Luck because I have a friend who seems to have this same superpower. Not to the mind-bending degree that Lindsay has in this film, but enough to make the computers at the airline ticket counter mess up and not charge her a dime for checking three overweight bags. (While I, lacking this skill, get to pay $25 extra when my single bag weighs 50.002 pounds.) You'd expect me to be bitter, but honestly, it's handy to have someone like that around.
And when your web site contains the word "luck" right in the name, you have obligations.
I saw Zombeak because it was filmed in Atlanta and I'm friends with some of the people in it. Plus I'd never been to a world premiere. It played on 6/6/06, so if the remake of The Omen has crappy numbers, you know why. Zombeak doesn't have Lindsay Lohan, but it does have Jason Von Stein and JimmyLee Smith. So you can see the parallels. Legions of paparazzi follow Lindsay around to monitor her eating disorders and wait for a breast to fall out of her top. Jason's cloud of paparazzi is more modest, but they don't have to wait for him to flash anyone. He'll do it. Name the time and place. He might not even wait for you to ask. No calls of "Ooo, Lindsay! Take it off! You're so hot!" Instead, it's "Put your tank-top on, Jason, your McNuggets are getting cold."
And when your web site contains the word "Clucking," you set expectations for yourself.
Zombeak also stars my new low-budget movie girlfriend. For all you out there who were looking for a girl that looks like the older Gilmore Girl but with cooler eyes... dibs. No, I didn't talk to her at the premiere -- would have spoiled the moment. But I could tell from the way she was slyly looking somewhere else when I saw her that she totally knew I existed.
Ok, right. On to the movies. Good luck, everyone.
Lindsay Lohan is Ashley Albright, a young exec at some New York company that throws parties for other companies. She's never been caught in the rain, or had trouble hailing a taxi, or had to wait more than three seconds for the next elevator. A meeting her boss misses turns into a giant promotion for her. Her best friends live in a squalid one-room efficiency, but that's ok. I think Lindsay took this role because it seemed like a nice power to have. Something like "it sure would have been lucky for me if my mom hadn't called a press conference to tell the world that my breasts are real" or "gosh it would be nice to not be a bulimic crackhead."
But I kid the bulimic crackheads. I'm not trying to denigrate people with drug addictions or eating disorders, both of which are very serious and tragic. I'm trying to make the admittedly oblique point that Lindsay's magic luck only extends to "they had just one more in my size!" and not to something useful like "the biopsy came back negative!"
She's also lucky enough to stumble into an elevator with a hot long-haired blonde dude.
That luck isn't shared by Melissa (played by Melissa K. Gilbert -- the K stands for "not the one from Little House on the Prairie"), a voluptuous young Cooters (not Hooters -- Cooters) waitress who gets abducted by Satanists while making out with her boyfriend Bobby Ray (Jason Von Stein). These Satanists -- who bear a passing resemblance to General Zod and his cohorts if they were touring with Lenny Henry, and I should get double bonus points for that subreference -- are prepping for their boss' return visit. Every thirteen years, Satan comes back, inhabits the body of a presumably male follower, and impregnates the nearest unwilling girl. The pregnancy lasts about 10 minutes until the Anti-Christ is born and destroys the world. I don't know if something happens every 13 years to thwart Satan's funky scheme, or if this particular visit is special. I'd hate to think a movie like this has a hole in the story.
But luck isn't with Satan either, because Billy Ray, Melissa's boss Max (JimmyLee Smith), and Billy Ray's cop brother Fasmagger (Nathan Standridge) show up, and Satan is forced into the body of a recently deceased, presumably male chicken.
Chris Pine plays Jake, who is extremely unlucky (but not involved with Satanists, except in the director's cut). He works as the sound board operator and toilet plunger at a bowling alley. Really. He's an extremely nice guy, and he's very talented at what he does, but because he's not lucky, he lives in a dump with other wonderful and unfortunate people. But his bad luck isn't paying attention for a moment, and he finds himself at a huge party where Lindsay is also hanging out. They bump into each other, dance, then kiss, and her luck moves over to him faster than undercooked pork into a Bama fan. Thirty seconds later, Jake is saving the life of a rich and appreciative record company mogul, and Lindsay is getting arrested and fired for hiring a gigolo for her boss.
The really unlucky ones turn out to be the Satanists. Sat-Hen is indiscriminate when it's time to peck a victim to death. The rumors that black lipstick and fake British accents would protect you from the wrath of the Fallen One turns out to be terrible fibs. Who knew? Anyway, you don't stay dead when you've had your eyes plucked out by a devil chicken -- you arise as an extremely durable zombie.
There are innocent bystanders caught in the crossfire, too. Lindsay's luckless life is so bad she is forced to move into her friends' efficiency, where she breaks mirrors and dodges a black cat and everything. They bear their pathetic friend well enough, but the shock of being suddenly unpampered makes Lindsay unpleasantly shrill and a little weird. Her plan is to track down all the guys at the party and kiss them until she gets her luck back. (I forgot to mention it was a masquerade party -- everyone was wearing masks.) She didn't catch Jake's name, you see. We in the audience know that Jake snuck in and wasn't on any guest list, so the most Lindsay will get is a mouth covered in cold sores. But they bump into each other at a diner in Manhattan. This luck stuff is one seriously convenient plot contrivance -- more so than fate could ever be. In your face, Serendipity.
Also innocent, by comparison, are Melissa and her rescue squad. I don't know who told them they could kill a demon chicken and a bunch of zombies with guns, but you CAN'T. Even an axe won't do the trick. You can chop them into a fine powder, and they reassemble. Eventually, everyone is a zombie except Melissa and the hot Satanist Vascara (Tracy "I Am Not Worthy Of Christian" Yarkoni). Vascara looked like she was going to make it out, but she forgot why Satan showed up in the first place: devil nookie. The scene where she is dragged into the back seat of a hearse and Chicken Raped is not one that will leave me soon. And that Tracy managed to be so convincing indicates that she is either a good actress or that she has a history which will interfere with our long-term prospects. (And as soon as I typed "Chicken Raped," the Chicken Dance tune popped into my head -- maybe Tracy and I were not meant to be. My wife will be pleased.)
Lindsay, cluing in to who Jake is, steals a kiss and her luck at the worse possible time. For Jake, anyway. She immediately gets her job back with a hefty raise, since her boss and the gigolo fell in love and are getting hitched, and taxis seem to follow her home, and her HIV clears up. But Jake is managing a new band that's about to do its first huge show, and the drummer gets lost and the record mogul is about to have him killed, probably by an evil chicken.
Things run smoothly from there. Lindsay thinks of someone beyond herself just in time to come back and kiss Jake back to success. Then they have such a major make-out session they forget who's lucky. The simple test (both running into traffic) doesn't occur to them, so they each kiss the cheek of the precocious 11-year-old girl that was Jake's only friend in the slums. The kid dashes off, suddenly able to have any man she wants. If they make Just My Luck 2, it's going to be a little creepy. Lindsay and Jake (one bleeding from both eyes and the other with an arrow through the neck) are going to have to make out with an 11-year-old to save their own lives.
What's also creepy is that I have a niece and nephew named Lindsay and Jake, who are siblings. I keep transposing their faces in my head onto the movie characters as I write this, and I'm wigging myself out. Time to wrap this up.
And Melissa, beset by zombies and a suddenly satiated chicken, gets a reprieve. A pregnant Vascara staggers in, ready to burst, cackling with glee that she did it in a hearse with Foghorn Leghorn. A few nearly believable axe thrusts later, and Chicken Little is a nice curry in a Vascara sauce. The zombies are dead. Satan has gone home. And Melissa is presumably the manager of the local Cooters.
Still with me? Yeah? I'm so sorry.
So which is better?
It's tough to compare. Lindsay Lohan makes more money in the time it takes to sniff a dime bag for lunch than it would take to make Zombeak ten times over. Her movies can afford things like... I don't know... lights and microphones. And it's a nice tale of redemption, because Lindsay is so self-centered the entire time, and she is rewarded when she finally thinks of someone else first. It fits nicely with one of my own personal philosophies:
I'm not the kind of girl who gives up just like that, oh no. The tide is high but I'm holding on. I'm gonna be your number one, number one, number one.
Damn. Wrong one. Mixed up my fortune cookie labels. Here we go:
Be as kind as you can to everyone around you, bend over backwards for the ones you care about, and the rest will see to itself.
But thinking of luck as the sole driving force to success rubs me the wrong way. If you're not a naturally lucky person, then no matter what you do, you will spend your days plunging clogs out of bowling alley toilets. If you ARE a lucky person, you can be a towering, self-centered bitch who claims the work of others as her own and the world will still be blinded by the sunlight shining out from your butt. I don't buy it, and if more than eighteen people saw this film, I'd be worried about the message.
Oh, speaking of the audiences... when I walked into Just My Luck, it was a weekday, right after the local high schools were out for the summer. There were little clumps of girls ranging from about 15-17 years old around the theater. From their angle, a giant old guy comes in alone when reputable grownups have jobs -- so he is probably a pervert looking to attack teenagers. It's tough to know where to sit at those moments. (Answer: Down front, in plain sight. Do not turn your head left to right. Keep your hands visible.)
Zombeak, on the other hand, had a grounded moral center and several useful life lessons:
And the audience? NOT JUDGMENTAL. Most of them were probably there to pick up freaky Goth girls anyway.
So the nod has to go to Zombeak. Sure, the production values were low, and the story was more than a little bizarre, and it was dark and the sound was off and a lot of the special effects were incomplete. But even though the whole thing was smeared with fake blood, you didn't feel dirty at the end.
Just My Luck, on the other hand, was as helpful a guide to how to live your life as Xanadu was a guide to successful business planning. If you were born an Untouchable, you stayed an Untouchable unless you somehow sucked face with the elite. Not exactly inspirational. Not that I'm saying becoming a Satanist is a better alternative, but at least you have some control over your own destiny.
I don't know when anyone will get to see Zombeak again. If it shows up, go support it. If you see Tracy Yarkoni anywhere, tell her all is forgiven and I won't wear that feather boa any more.
And if you bump in to Lindsay, please help her. We should have seen the warning signs during that Herbie movie.