Back to School Part II #36: Dead Man On Campus (dir by Alan Cohn)

Posted on September 13, 2016 by Lisa Marie Bowman

Oh my God, it’s Zack Morris smoking pot and getting laid!

That, in a sentence, is the main appeal of the 1998 comedy Dead Man On Campus. This is the film that features Mark-Paul Gosselaar playing a character who does everything that most Saved By The Bell fans have always assumed that Zack Morris was doing whenever he wasn’t on-screen, fooling Belding, tormenting Screech, and gazing at Kelly.

(By the way, if you’re interested in the further college adventures of Zack Morris, check out Primetime Preppie, where Derek Morris and I are reviewing every single episode of Saved By The Bell: The College Years!)

In Dead Man On Campus, Gosselaar plays Cooper Frederickson. Cooper is a college student. He spends most of his time partying and consistently fails his classes but since he’s going to a college that apparently doesn’t believe in academic suspension, it doesn’t matter. Cooper’s father continues to pay for him to go to school. To be honest, Cooper is kind of a jerk but he’s also really hot. He wears glasses and there’s just something about a bad boy with bad eyesight.

(Seriously…)

Anyway, Cooper has two roommates. Kyle (Jason Segel) is … well, he’s Jason Segel, giving another one of the somewhat odd performances that typified his film career before he co-starred with The Muppets and played David Foster Wallace. His other roommate is Josh (Tom Everett Scott). Josh starts out as a responsible and hard-working student but then he falls under Cooper’s bad influence. He also gets a girlfriend (Poppy Montgomery) and ends up having so much fun that he blows off all of his classes.

Suddenly, Josh realizes that he’s about to lose his scholarship. At the same time, Cooper’s father comes to visit and announces that he will no longer be paying for his son’s lifestyle. If Cooper flunks out of school, he’s going to end up cleaning toilets for his father’s janitorial service.

Oh no! Zack Morris cleaning a toilet!? How the mighty have fallen! I guess they’re screwed, right!?

Nope! It turns out that there’s a clause in the university charter. If a student’s roommate commits suicide during the school year, that student gets perfect grades for the semester! (I was told the same thing during my first semester at the University of North Texas.) Unfortunately, Kyle has recently moved out of the dorm and neither Cooper nor Josh are willing to die for the other.

So, they decide to get a new roommate. After breaking into the school’s student files, they identify the three students who are most likely to commit suicide. One is an aspiring singer who Cooper and Josh come to suspect might be faking his depression as a way to hit on girls. (Okay, that’s kind of clever because I know that I’ve gone out with people who I thought were dark and profound, just to discover that they were actually rather boring and bourgeois.) Another is a nerdy computer guy who has paranoid delusions about Bill Gates.

And then there’s Cliff. Cliff is actually the first potential roommate that they investigate but he also makes the biggest impression. In fact, he makes such a big impression that he ends up overshadowing everyone else in the film. Cliff is played by Lochlyn Munro, who has subsequently become one of the patron saints of the Lifetime network. (Seriously, it seems like Munro shows up on Lifetime on a daily basis.) Ripping through the film like a cyclone, Munro is definitely the highlight of Dead Man On Campus. It turns out that Cliff isn’t so much suicidal as he’s just absolutely insane and Munro goes so wonderfully over the top in the film that he briefly brings some much-needed life to this comedy about death.

Anyway, Dead Man On Campus is a pretty forgettable movie and it’s never as clever as it thinks that it is. But it does feature Mark-Paul Gosselaar taking hits off a bong and that’ll definitely make it worth seeing for some viewers.

Val’s Movie Roundup #2: Hallmark Edition

Posted on July 14, 2015 by Valerie Troutman

Signed, Sealed, Delivered: From Paris With Love (2015) – Despite what people say elsewhere online, you can’t come into this film without having seen any of the other Signed, Sealed, Delivered TV Movies/Episodes. I know this because I tried and it doesn’t work. The movie is about four people (conveniently picked so we know that they should pair off) who get dead letters and track down who should have received them. Sounds like it should be a procedural, but it’s not. This series seems to set up a tiny little bit of a plot, then spends the whole time having the characters develop through conversation. The reason this film will lose people who are brand new is because it reaches all the way back through everything to the first episode of the show to bring Oliver’s (Eric Mabius) wife into his life again. The wife is played by Poppy Montgomery in a role far better than in Tammy and the T-Rex. Yeah, I’m going to work that movie into as many reviews as possible. There are also flashbacks. You really need to come to this as the culmination of all the previous stuff. As a result, my experience with this film was not good. It felt inert. Kind of like passing away slowly, but painlessly. I know that sounds brutal, but I can’t think of a better way to describe it.

Signed, Sealed, Delivered for Christmas (2014) – This Signed, Sealed, Delivered is a different beast. It’s still the same characters and once again a dead letter has shown up. This time it’s a letter for God. You’d think it’s for Santa considering Christmas is in the title, but this is less a Christmas movie as it is a Christian movie. Unlike From Paris With Love, you can come into this without knowing anything. That’s a real plus! Again, it’s not about plot, but character development. And subtle slow development at that. I wonder how long Hallmark is planning to keep this show going. It can feel like being teased at times. Like near the end when Norman (Geoff Gustafson) reaches up to gently touch Rita’s (Crystal Lowe) face. You know she should just grab him in her arms, but it never happens. Instead, he walks away while she is lit up like a Christmas tree. If you have to choose between the two TV Movie episodes of this show to start with, then please start with this one. You’ll have a far better time, and most likely will enjoy From Paris With Love much more than I did.

Surprised By Love (2015) – When the cake gets destroyed, just make a new one from Twinkies! There’s nothing really to be surprised about here. You have a driven girl with the wrong guy. You have one of those guys who achieved some sort of nirvana by wandering from place to place. He’s kind of like the magic negro or magic eccentric type character that turns around other people’s lives simply by coming in contact with them. And finally, you have her boyfriend who is stuffy and clearly doesn’t belong with her. Our heroine runs into the magic man who is selling driftwood. Yeah, and his car runs on vegetable oil. I’m not making that up. What happens is that her boyfriend thinks it will be really clever if she brings home the magic man, whom she knows from high school, to be an embarrassment so he looks wonderful. Guess what happens? At least the grandpa who pretends to have dementia so he doesn’t have to talk to anybody is kind of funny. This one’s harmless.

Nearlyweds (2013) – Yeah, that’s easily the best scene in the movie. A phone call comes in with a job offer and while the person is leaving a message, the dog pees on the phone and it shorts out. But let me back up. This movie is about three girlfriends who all got married around the same time by the same guy. Problem though, he dies before he can sign the paperwork. That means, technically, legally, they’re not actually married. Typical, but could be humorous. Except it’s not. One of the big problems is that the husbands don’t find out about this until 48 minutes into the movie. At that point there are 39 minutes left. I don’t know why it takes so long. Everything prior seems like filler, then the secret is out, and still next to nothing happens. I know it’s Hallmark and a TV Movie in general, but they really should have done more with this. It’s not a concept that’s necessarily doomed from the start. Too bad.

Film Review: Tammy and the T-Rex (1994, dir. Stewart Raffill)

Posted on July 13, 2015 by Valerie Troutman

You read the name and you know it sucks. Then that title screen pops up. Oh, my God! It looks like a 2nd grader made that, but it’s oh so perfect. You know why? Because this movie is as childish as that screen implies. The only thing wrong with it is that the title is too short. It should have been called Tammy, the T-Rex, and the African Queen. No, not because it has anything to do with the Hepburn movie, but because of this.

This!

It’s two for the price of one! Not only do we get a gay stereotype, but one that is also a black stereotype. But what do you expect? The movie is made by the same guy who directed Mannequin: On The Move, which had a similar character. He also wrote and directed Mac and Me. The character’s name is Byron (Theo Forsett). So, what happens in this movie when Byron isn’t passing out or someone is saying not to bend over near him?

Testicular Standoff

I’m not making that up! One of the two cops who shows up actually calls it that. Those are two high school guys trying to crush each other’s genitals with their bare hands. Wanna know something else? That’s Paul Walker on the right. Yep, that Paul Walker. Need it to be even dumber, since the fact that this carries on for several minutes isn’t enough. It turns out Walker, I mean Michael, is faking it because he’s actually wearing a cup. If you can’t tell whether you are holding male genitals or a piece of plastic then you are in real trouble. Why are they doing this? Well, of course for the heart of Denise Richards who plays Tammy! It’s everyone’s dream to have two men fight over them this way. Oh, and that shot of Byron above is from this scene. He seems to be turned on by it. Oh, this movie. Now comes the T-Rex.

I know this is a lousy VHS print of the movie, but I can’t imagine how much worse this must look in HD. The plot goes like this. Michael shows up at Tammy’s place for a little action. Poppy Montgomery, in clearly her finest performance, sees Michael climbing up to Tammy’s room and calls in the other guy who fought with Michael earlier at school. Just as Tammy is finally gonna get a little something, in comes the bad guy with his friends in a scene reminiscent of A Clockwork Orange. They take Michael away to the Wild Animal Park. They couldn’t come up with a better name. Michael is left to get mauled by a lion. What happens next is right up there with the vagina snake scene at the beginning of Lady Terminator.

A mad scientist and his girl show up at the hospital, pretend Michael is dead, then steal his body out from under the nose of Tammy, Byron, both of which pass out on the floor, and the one member of Michael’s family who also happens to drink like a fish. Then they cut open Michael’s head and put his brain into a T-Rex. Yep, that’s how it happens. What follows is Michael the T-Rex seeking revenge on all the people who have wronged him.

The Got Milk? Guy

The funniest death is easily when the guy from the original Got Milk? commercial gets killed after peeing on the T-Rex. Oh, and Michael the T-Rex also makes a phone call.

He actually tries to leave a message for Tammy!

What follows are stupid deaths, stupid gay jokes, and one of the fakest things I have seen in a long time. Feast your eyes!

This will move you to tears.

The ending is so absurd that I won’t even…who am I kidding? No one is going to seek this out. It ends like this.

An American Werewolf In London death

Denise Richards does a sexy dance

And Paul Walker’s brain sparks with excitement.

After unsuccessfully trying to find Michael’s body, they simple put his brain in Tammy’s room, attach it to a camera, and she dances for him. It’s amazing these movies exist. I don’t know how we made it out of the 1990’s. There’s an Italian R-rated version of this movie with a few deleted scenes. I watched them. Let’s end this review with one of them.