All posts by Tim Lammers

Interview: David Koechner talks ‘Zombie Apocalypse’ on Blu-ray

David Koechner in 'Scouts Guide to the Zombie Apocalypse' (photo: Paramount Pictures)

By Tim Lammers

Acclaimed funnyman David Koechner has made us laugh many times over the years, from the multiple roles during his stint on “Saturday Night Live” to his hilarious turn as misinformed sports anchor Champ Kind opposite Will Ferrell, Steve Carell and Paul Rudd in the “Anchorman” movies.

But as much as the comedy actor has the ability to deliver gut-busting humor, there’s one thing that he can’t laugh away himself: the ability to stomach scary movies, especially ones with zombies.

“It’s hard for me to watch them. They scare me – they really do,” Koechner said in a recent phone conversation about his role as Scout Leader Rogers in “Scouts Guide to the Zombie Apocalypse.” “I get nightmares. If I watch ‘The Walking Dead,’ it will invade my dreams, but, ironically, I can perform in zombie movie.”

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Of course, it helped Koechner that the horror is mixed with some humor with “Scouts Guide to the Zombie Apocalypse,” new this week on Blu-ray and DVD (Paramount Home Media Distribution). After he’s introduced as the happy-go-lucky scout leader, Koechner’s Rogers suffers a cruel fate and is turned into a zombie after he is bitten by one of the creatures when a zombie epidemic hits his small town.

Worse yet, three of his scouts (Tye Sheridan, Logan Miller and Joey Morgan) are use their knowledge and resources to fend off Rogers and a growing number of zombies to save the day. Sarah Dumont as stars as the butt-kicking cocktail waitress Denise, who helps the scouts battle the undead; and comic great Cloris Leachman plays a small but hilarious role as elderly zombie.

Koechner, who also recently starred in the Christmas horror hit “Krampus,” said part of the appeal of “Scout’s Guide to the Zombie Apocalypse” to him was director Christopher Landon’s inventive take on the script. Koechner said Landon clearly took into account the over-saturation of zombie projects in film and television and gave the genre his own unique spin.

“I think it’s really inventive, especially the way that Christopher allowed the personalities of the people before they were bit carry over to when they became zombies,” Koechner said. “Whoever you were in real life carries over to who you are as a zombie, which is really cool. Since it’s a parody, too, it made it that much more fun.”

As a longtime comedian, Koechner knows the worst thing any performer can do is try to be funny, and Landon helped the cast realize the laughs in a fresh, new way.

“There’s something for everybody in this film,” Koechner said. “There are hidden jokes everywhere, some great surprises, and some jumps in there, too. It’s really tongue-in-cheek and a fun romp.”

Koechner said part of the fun for him personally was the evolving (or devolving, depending on your point of view) makeup that he had to wear as the zombie version of his character gets massacred over and over again, each time in crueler manner. Of course, the makeup process is a long one, but Koechner fully embraced it.

“I spent three hours every night in the makeup trailer, but I looked at it like, ‘I’m so lucky that I’m working with the best people in the business and I get to be their canvass,” Koechner enthused. “It was pretty awesome.”

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At the movies: Top 10 in 2015

Photo: Walt Disney Pictures

By Tim Lammers

There surely will be some disagreements, but here are 10 of the films that made movie-going worthwhile in 2015.

10. “The Walk” – Robert Zemeckis’ direction is at its jaw-dropping best with this stunning recreation of French performer Phillipe Petit’s (Joseph Gordon-Levitt) “artistic coup” – a death-defying wire walk between the void of the Twin Towers of the World Trade Center in 1974. The point-of-view shots on the wire were among the most, if not the most, intense scenes on the big screen this year.

9. “The Martian” – Director Ridley Scott returns to space once again – sans any alien life forms — with one of the most entertaining films of the year in this tale about an astronaut (Matt Damon) who was presumed dead after a vicious storm hits his team’s Mars expedition. True, it’s mostly a one-man show for Damon, but in between, the talented ensemble including Jeff Daniels, Jessica Chastain, Sebastian Stan, Michael Pena, Chiwetel Ejiofor, Kristen Wiig and Sean Bean help create an engaging rescue mission filled with as many laughs as there are thrills. It’s a real blast (off).

 8. “Legend” – Tom Hardy flawlessly demonstrates why he’s one of the best actors today with a dual performance as twins Ron and Reggie Kray, a pair of brutal gangsters who ruled the East end of London in the 1960s. Nearly identical in appearance, Hardy immediately establishes the distinct personalities of the Krays, making you quickly forget that what you’re watching are essentially impressive camera tricks. Proceeded by his kick-ass turn in “Mad Max: Fury Road” and followed by his frightening turn in “The Revenant,” 2015 was the year of Tom Hardy.

 7. “The Big Short” – Four groups of Wall Street outsiders stick it to the big banks during the housing meltdown of 2008, which feels great until you realize that even after the financial Armageddon, nothing really changes. Director Adam McKay makes an impressive transition from comedy to satire and drama with a film so slickly executed that it hearkens the greatness of Martin Scorsese. Christian Bale is the best of the film’s winning ensemble cast.

 6. “Inside Out” – Pixar’s “Up” Oscar-winner Pete Docter is back with this ingenious tale of how five emotions become mixed when an 11-year-old girl struggles with her family’s relocation from Minnesota to San Francisco. Like “Toy Story 3,” “Inside Out” is as much an emotional roller coaster for adults as it is a visual wonder filled with laughs for kids.

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 5. “Steve Jobs” – Michael Fassbender gives a career performance as the complex, socially-inept co-founder of Apple Computers, ingeniously played out during three pivotal moments of his career. Director Danny Boyle realizes his vision more like a stage play through Aaron Sorkin’s whip smart dialogue, where Jobs’ embattled colleagues (expertly played by Kate Winslet, Jeff Daniels, Michael Stuhlbarg and to a lesser degree, Seth Rogen) wrack their brains trying to figure the prickly computer pioneer out.

 4.”Cinderella” – Far and away the most beautiful piece of cinema in 2015, this Kenneth Branagh-directed gem is one of the few films this year to deliver on all levels. Sometimes emotional, sometimes funny, and always full of heart, “Cinderella” has everything from stunning performances, awe-inspiring sets, gorgeous costumes, an emotional score and the recalibration of a classic character to reflect the modern age without damaging the classic tale’s integrity. Most of all, the film’s important message, “Have courage and be kind,” is one that will resonate for ages.

3. “Spotlight” – The film’s subject matter is depressing as all hell, but this film about The Boston Globe’s uncovering of the Boston Archdiocese’s priest sex abuse scandal in the early 2000s is so compelling that you can’t help but be gripped by it from beginning to end. The film not only recalls the greatness of “All the President’s Men,” but also serves as a reminder of today’s sad state of investigative journalism (if not journalism as a whole), which has been shot to hell by the Wild West Internet landscape where every media outlet has to have the story first, even if the facts aren’t completely right.

2. “Mad Max: Fury Road” – Writer-director George Miller finally gets the opportunity to make the “Mad Max” film he’s always wanted to make with this hyperkinetic road opus that can’t be described as anything but “batshit crazy.” Tom Hardy wipes the memory slate clean of Mel Gibson with his brooding performance as the title character, and Charlize Theron gives a furious performance of the aptly-titled character Furiosa.

 1. “Star Wars: The Force Awakens” – Sure, it’s not perfect, but how often can a film match the tone of the original 37 years after its release, and the monstrous expectations that go with it? The Force is back in a big way thanks to the ever-burgeoning creativity of writer-director J.J. Abrams, and this seventh episode in the “Star Wars” saga serves as a big reminder why we love movies in the first place. “Episode VII” can’t come soon enough.

 10 honorable mentions: “Ex Machina,” “Black Mass,” “Me and Earl and the Dying Girl,” “The Revenant,” “Shaun the Sheep Movie,” “Ant-Man,” “Creed,” “The Good Dinosaur,” “Kingsman: The Secret Service” and “The Peanuts Movie.”

Worst film of 2015: “Sisters” – Tina Fey and Amy Poehler force an uncharacteristic brand of raunchy comedy down our throats that’s dreadfully unfunny and downright embarrassing. How this film got the greenlight to begin with, is one of the great mysteries of 2015. The “Saturday Night Live” alums must know where some bodies are buried.

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Movie review: ‘The Hateful Eight’

'The Hateful Eight' (photo -- The Weinstein Company)

By Tim Lammers

“The Hateful Eight” (R) 2 stars (out of four)

It’s hard to get behind a movie where most everybody is hateful, especially one that is nearly three hours long. But that’s the case of Quentin Tarantino’s whacked-out Western “The Hateful Eight,” a movie typical of the controversial filmmaker’s style of excessive, graphic and sometimes downright perverted violence, talky dialogue and the liberal use of the N-word. Tarantino clearly wants to think of himself in the hall of great filmmakers throughout history with this attempt at a cinematic epic, but instead succeeds at remaining a legend in his own mind.

At 2 hours, 49 minutes, the wide release version of the film (his 70mm “Roadshow” version is even longer, and includes an overture and intermission), the biggest thing working against “The Hateful Eight” is it unnecessarily excessive length. The long and short of it is, the film surrounds the plight of eight characters (did I call them hateful?) who are forced to live in closed quarters with each other during a fierce blizzard in the mountains of Wyoming anywhere from 6-12 years after the end of the Civil War. Holed up in a lodge called Minnie’s Haberdashery, all eight of the characters have an extreme distrust of each other and their possible hidden motives, raising the tension level so high that it’s quite apparent that not everyone is going to make it out alive before the blizzard lets up.

One of them, the bounty hunter John Ruth (Kurt Russell), believes the prisoner he’s taking to Red Rock to hang — the murderous Daisy Domergue (Jennifer Jason Leigh) — is in cahoots with at least one of the people in the cabin, and they’re plotting her escape and killing everybody else in the process. Also in the lodge is the former Civil War hero-turned-bounty hunter Major Marquis Warren (Samuel L. Jackson), former Confederate General Sandy Smithers (Bruce Dern) and the presumed sheriff of Red Rock (where Daisy will hang) Chris Mannix (Walton Goggins). Rounding out the “hateful eight” are the shifty innkeeper Bob (Demien Bichir), and two other travelers – the cowboy Joe Gage (Michael Madsen) and hangman Oswaldo Mobray (Tim Roth).

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There’s no doubt Tarantino has a few unique ideas in The Hateful Eight” and assembled a terrific cast for the film, and standing out among them is Leigh, who appears to be reveling in the shameless, vitriol-spewing ways of Daisy. Goggins is also great as Mannix, who has most character arc. Russell is also great as the grizzled bounty hunter who would probably be likable if he didn’t smack Daisy around so much or hurl the N-word with reckless abandon. But because he does, he’s hateful, too.

Tarantino’s biggest problem is he believes in his own hype and simply doesn’t know when to stop. Perhaps the biggest issue is the inclusion, once again, of “real” dialogue, featuring characters having mundane conversations with one-another. Hey, a bit of reality is great, but it shouldn’t come as a big surprise that it’s also monotonous, pointless chatter that does nothing to move the story along. The movie would have been a lot better an hour shorter.

Not surprisingly, “The Hateful Eight” gets preachy, too, broaching political issues. Tarantino obviously likes to stir the pot, whether it’s with his N-word-filled dialogue, or off-camera with his inflammatory rhetoric against New York City police officers. In this film, clearly the guy isn’t afraid to say or demonstrate anything through his “vision,” including the repeated beatings of a woman and a sick scene of sexual violence and humiliation (told in flashback) perpetrated by one of the eight. Of course, both targets of the hate have questionable backgrounds, which apparently makes Tarantino think it’s OK to brutalize them.

The question is why, after eight films, does the filmmaker continue to do it? If anything, the three hours of “The Hateful Eight” will give its viewers enough time to think about why they keep letting this guy off the hook. True, his “Pulp Fiction” was revolutionary for its time, but since he’s been giving us the same flavors — some tasty, some bitter, some vile — packaged in different ways. It’s time to shake up the formula, Quentin.

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Interview: Screenwriter Brian Burns talks ‘Daddy’s Home’

Mark Wahlberg and Will Ferrell in 'Daddy's Home' (inset Brian Burns) Photos: Paramount Pictures

By Tim Lammers

Although the film’s a comedy, getting a chance to write about his experiences as a step-father for “Daddy’s Home” was in an odd sort of way cathartic for filmmaker Brian Burns. After all, it was a rare opportunity to confront through laughs the sort of position he and countless other stepfathers have been in, dealing with their wives’ exes when children are involved.

“It’s funny, it was not only therapeutic, it provided a good goal for me to set as I was writing it. I knew that once I had the idea of writing it, the best version of the story is the two dads figure out a way to come together in the end and work together. The feel-good family lesson of it would be, ‘Two dads are better than one.’ I put that out there in the universe as a goal for all of us in real life.”

Of course, Burns also knows that real life is a bit more complicated than that, and in “Daddy’s Home” we get to see the extremes to which Will Ferrell’s and Mark Wahlberg’s characters go to win the approval of young children in a blended family.

Fortunately, that wasn’t entirely the case in Burns’ experience as a stepdad.

“My stepkids’ father and I never went to the lengths Will and Mark go to in the picture, but we were complete, total opposites,” Burns said. “The idea came from that, and thanks to my incessant curiosity with my wife, I asked myself, ‘I do not understand how you were married to him and then married to me?’ We have nothing in common other than we are two humans.”

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Opening in theaters Christmas Day, Ferrell stars as Brad Whitaker, a successful radio executive who, despite good intentions, tries too hard to be a good father to his two young stepchildren. Thanks to the encouragement and support of his wife, Sara (Linda Cardellini), Brad seems to be making slow but sure progress, until Sara’s ex-husband, the children’s biological father, Dusty Mayron, shows up on their doorstep.

With his sparkling charisma and effortless ability to wow his kids, Dusty’s bad boy presence (and refusal to leave) kicks off a twisted rivalry between him and the man trying to raise the youngsters, and it appears that nothing is off-limits in their bids to win the kids’ approval.

Burns certainly is no stranger to the entertainment business, having served as a writer and executive producer on such smash TV hits as “Blue Bloods,” and writer and producer on HBO’s “Entourage.” And despite the comedy edge he brought to the table with the latter show, Burns admitted he felt a bit intimidated pitching the idea of “Daddy’s Home” to Ferrell and one of his production partners, Adam McKay.

“That was an incredible experience — the most fun and the most terrifying,” recalled Burns, the brother of filmmaker Edward Burns. “I went into a room and pitched Adam and Will, and tried to make these two comedy giants laugh. It was really terrifying, but they were  great. A few minutes into my pitch, and Will and Adam were up on their feet and improvising scenes. It was one of the greatest experiences of my career.”

Burns said his ultimate wish-fulfillment came, though, when Ferrell agreed to star in the film.

“On one of the first dates my wife and I went on, we went to see ‘Elf.’ I told her, ‘My dream is to one day write a Will Ferrell movie.’ But I was no place near to doing that at that point in my career as a young writer,” Burns said. “So, Will was always my first choice for this movie.”

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