Zombies on Broadway (1945)
Zombies on Broadway is not what you might be hoping for from its title, rather its a vehicle for the largely forgotten RKO comedy team of Wally Brown and Alan Carney. The film casts the two as Broadway press agents who are tasked with securing "a real zombie" for a zombie themed night club their gangster boss Ace Miller (future 1960's sitcom impresario Sheldon Leonard) is opening. Zombie in this context does not refer to the flesh or brain eating incarnation of the undead, but rather the somnambulate slave variety of Caribbean legend. So its off to a small Caribbean island for the pair, where the meet a beautiful night club singer (Annie Jeffreys, still with us at 93), a mad doctor (Dracula himself Bela Lugosi), and of course some zombies. Amusing enough in a low rent Abbott and Costello type way, if anything the movie was better then I thought it would be. Still this is a zombie movie that hard core zombie fans can probably feel safe skipping. **1/2
Neighbors (2014)
New parents Seth Rogan and Rose Byrne are understandably concerned when a fraternity helmed by Zack Efron moves into the house next door. At first the members of both residences attempt to make nice with each other but it eventually turns into an escalating war of pranks which ends with all parties having learned something about themselves. Satisfying comedy of the Apatowian school is well cast and has the requisite number of comic moments, yet is also not all that memorable. I never would have thought of casting Lisa Kudrow as a college Dean. ***
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