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Wanda Sykes (PETER KRAMER / ASSOCIATED PRESS ARCHIVES)

Kathy Griffin: She'll Cut a Bitch
Wanda Sykes: I'ma Be Me

MAKE a double feature of these two standup comedy specials and one is driven to an inevitable conclusion:

Kathy Griffin's reality series My Life on the D-List is rendering her comedy D-grade.

As Griffin likes to point out, straight males tend to get yanked forcefully to her concerts by girlfriends/spouses. Her trademark shout-out to the audience says it all: "Where are my gays?"

I've always liked her, personally, my heterosexuality notwithstanding. But Griffin's 45-minute concert, shot in Portland, Ore., demonstrates she's lazily pandering to her gays instead of actually honing material. Straight men aren't likely to whoop with delight upon hearing that Griffin spent her birthday with Cher. But everyone must conclude, when the whooping is done, that Griffin's description of that encounter barely warrants a chuckle.

Wanda Sykes (a woman who now cops to being gay) is actually at the top of her game in the 90-minute plus special shot in Washington D.C., where she hosted the White House Press Correspondents Dinner months earlier. She recycles some of that material here and expands upon it with a fruitful riff on how black people can act more black now that Obama is president.

Sykes is similarly hilarious on the subject of working a gay cruise ship, raising twin babies, and doing Kegel exercises to fend off mid-life incontinence. For all that fairly personal material, Sykes demonstrates that the comedian's best friend is the ability to try out material in clubs and concerts, and not for a reality TV camera.

Griffin: 2 stars

Sykes: 3-1/2 stars

Zombieland

DIRECTOR Ruben Fleischer boldly splices the post-apocalyptic-flesh-eating-cannibal movie with the wistful coming-of-age movie, and darned if he doesn't make it work.

Jesse Eisenberg, last seen in the excellent comedy-drama Adventureland, essentially plays the same character here -- a smart, verbose, virginal young man just trying to make a place for himself in the world.

Unfortunately, this world has been ravaged by a plague that started with a mad cow-like disease that jumped species and has turned much of the populace into feral, Romero-esque killers.

Whatever is left of the healthy population is left to wander the ruins of Earth. Like most of the other characters in the film, Eisenberg's character, Columbus, is named for his place of origin, and that Ohio burg is his destination until he joins up with Tallahassee (Woody Harrelson), an ass-kicking redneck who prides himself on his ability to go toe-to-toe with the most formidable zombies with makeshift weapons -- such as pruning shears.

Columbus has devised his own rules of survival, including cardio workouts (zombies can always be outrun), always checking the back seat of the car, etc. But even while his chances of survival look good, his chances of finding Ms. Right look downright dismal until he and Tallahassee encounter Wichita (Emma Stone), a ruthless beauty who will go to any lengths to protect her younger sister Little Rock (Abigail Breslin) even as she takes her to a theme park in Los Angeles for one last stab at innocent fun.

Fleischer has a strong visual style, especially in scenes utilizing super slow motion, and he proves fairly adept at conjoining the disparate genres into a funny-scary spectacle.

The cast delivers the comic goods as well, whether it's Eisenberg bookishly advising the use of "double-tap" zombie execution, or Breslin attempting to explain to Harrelson the finer plot points of Hannah Montana.

Unfortunately, the middle section of the film loses integrity -- both in structure and in principle -- due to a gratuitous extended cameo that pulls the audience out of the story for a session of unseemly celebrity worship. 3 stars

Top DVD rentals

1. Surrogates

2. The Invention of Lying

3. The Hurt Locker

4. Gamer

5. Whip It

6. Whiteout

7. Michael Jackson: This Is It

8. Saw VI

9. Cloudy With a Chance of Meatballs

10. The Hangover

-- Rogers Video, week ending Jan. 31

Republished from the Winnipeg Free Press print edition February 4, 2010 E4