Unfortunately, Nathanson's tales never fully take off, because reality tends to turn phony or clunky when translated into movie formula. His screenplay here seems both formulaic and cheap, and his directing does not exactly make him the new Spielberg (which perhaps unintentionally reinforces the message in a movie about skill-free filmmaking). The Last Shot is appealingly cheesy, a tribute to the hope that springs eternal in the hopelessly inept. (R) TIM APPELO
Shaun of the Dead
Gwen Verdon gets flirty in Damn Yankees.
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Opens Fri., Sept. 24, at Neptune and others
The wind-sprint novelty of Danny Boyle's 28 Days Later may have resuscitated zombie chic, but this side of the Atlantic has yet to match him, spewing inane popcorn bloodbaths like House of the Dead, the Resident Evil series, and, worst of all, the abominable Dawn of the Dead remake. It should come as little surprise, then, that two smart- ass Brits are behind the genre's latest substantive reanimation. Co-screenwriters Edgar Wright and Simon Pegg have delivered the first "rom-zom-com," and even if the "rom" ultimately drags Shaun into premature rigor mortis, their imagination and irreverence are laudable.
Played with a Giovanni Ribisi–like impotence by Pegg, Shaun is an utter dullard, an interim home-electronics store manager who frequents the same London dive bar every night, retains boorish college crony Ed (Nick Frost) as a flatmate, and can't be bothered to disengage from PS2 long enough to accommodate easily aggravated girlfriend Liz (Kate Ashfield). Great excuse for a broad zombie metaphor, and Shaun's is surely the best since George Romero's original 1978 Dawn, which used the undead to vivisect consumer culture. In this case, when a (never-explained) zombie plague commences right outside Shaun and Ed's door, they're hilariously oblivious, routinized into a similar inertia via their boozing, amateur DJ adventures and first-person shooter video games. Only when a zombie infiltrates their garden do the lads get "proactive," hurling vinyl at it, all the while bitching like Nick Hornby characters over which of their beloved Britpop 45s are expendable.
Of course, this undead epidemic is the perfect opportunity for Shaun to show his mettle to Liz and ride his predictable character arc toward nobility. His motley crew sequesters in a pub, where much unfunny bickering and melodrama ensue; Wright and Pegg share Kevin Smith's weakness for extracting lame life lessons out of inspired lunacy. The ball's now in the American court to one-up the Brits' exceptional, if ultimately fizzled, premise. Better yet, we haven't heard from the Italians in years. . . . (R) ANDREW BONAZELLI
When Will I Be Loved
Opens Fri., Sept. 24, at Meridian
James Toback may be the most shameless man in Hollywood. A ridiculous pickup artist, he makes preposterous movies about pickup artists like him, self-gratifiying sex fantasies, sometimes with lurid crime fables grafted on. Improbably, there's genuine charm and pulpy energy to some of these movies, partly redeeming their disgustingness—especially when they star Toback's puppy-lovable pickup artist pal, Robert Downey Jr.
Here, the sleazebag protagonist is unpuppyish Ford (Frederick Weller, building on his creep repertoire from The Business of Strangers). If Downey's big dark eyes and upbeat demeanor make him Mickey Mouse, shifty-eyed Weller is Mickey Rat: jittery, skeletal, unhealthy. You wouldn't want to touch his leathery reptilian skin. He's a showbiz hustler in New York, like a young, infinitely less successful Toback. Instead of promising girls on the street he'll introduce them to Warren Beatty, as Toback used to do, this guy falsely vows to get his "actress/model/rappers" face time with hip-hop hero Damon Dash. Ford's line of jive is self-skeweringly funny, whether he's cruising for girls to do him in a sunlit Central Park, ducking an old flame he owes $9,300, or worshipping his goddesslike girlfriend, Vera (Neve Campbell).
Campbell plays Toback's dream girl: rich, careless, trying to find herself by impulsively fucking drop-dead gorgeous girls and any old boy who drops by her fab loft with floor-to-ceiling windows (when she's not fetchingly masturbating in the shower). She's also applying to be the personal assistant to a professor of African-American studies (played by Toback with self-mocking brio). Though she's just as up for insta-sex with passing strangers as the guys are, she's nobody's fool. It's so fun to watch her trifle with their trifling affections, we don't mind that the first many minutes of the movie slip by with no apparent goal. We just cut back and forth as Ford cruises the streets for sex and showbiz contacts, while Vera verbally fences with the horny prof. The dialogue is smart, arch, brittle, and as smooth as the Steadicam that captures it.
At length, Toback introduces a plot. Ford talks Vera into meeting a wolfishly courtly Italian media baron, Count Lupo (The Sopranos' Uncle Junior, Dominic Chianese). (He previously promised to pimp Vera to him for the $100,000.) Vera reacts more interestingly to this proposal than you'd expect. I won't spoil the upshot, except to say that the real revelation is Campbell's nimble acting. It's the performance of her career, and not to be missed, no matter how you feel (Feh! Ptui!) about Toback's erotic imagination. I never would have thought it, but this dame could play the hell out of the mysterious ingenue or femme fatale in any noir ever made. She's the real artist in this film. (R) TIM APPELO
