Directed by Richard Wong

Written by H. P. Mendoza

Starring: Jake Moreno, L. A. Renigen, H. P. Mendoza & Sigrid Sutter

100 min. in CinemaScope

Colma: the Musical is to Colma the city what Midnight Express was to Turkey. After this hits multiplexes, the local Chamber of Commerce should not expect to see a rise in Bay Area tourism.

If you live in Colma, Calif., the “graveyard capital of the world,” where the dead outnumber the living 1,500 to 1, there isn’t a whole hell of a lot to do but sing the blues. Might as well get it out on paper, write a catchy set of tunes and transform your hell into what could be the sharpest low-budget musical since Edgar G. Ulmer left PRC.

That’s exactly what screenwriter/lyricist (and lead actor) H. P. Mendoza did. The material was originally conceived as an indie pop album for a San Francisco stage show. Mendoza sent his friend Richard Wong a song asking whether it was worthy of a posting on his MySpace account.

Wong was so impressed, the tune instantly inspired him to use it as a catalyst for his feature film debut. In a week, Mendoza assembled a first draft and as “a sort of hopelessly romantic summer project,” Wong cobbled together $15,000 to film this bouncy, poison pen love letter to the city that spawned him.

The story is familiar; three friends manage to escape high school only to be held prisoner by their home town. Billy (Jake Moreno) is stuck in a mall job with a hilarious oddball boss played by Paul Kolsanoff. The aspiring young actor gets his first sense of what life outside of Colma must be like when he’s cast in a local play. He also falls for his leading lady (Sigrid Sutter).

Maribel (L. A. Renigen) is as extroverted as they get. She is Colma’s barometer of hip, always on the lookout for the “in” parties, particularly those she can crash. When the trios’ friendship gets put to the test, it is Maribel who holds them together.

Rodel (Mendoza) carries the most baggage. With his older brother in jail, Rodel’s steely father expects him to assume the position of Number One Son. Rodell isn’t there yet, and the fact that he is gay remains the best kept secret around the house. It also becomes a source of unnecessary melodrama, the film’s only disruption.

If you’re not hooked after the opening song, check your pulse. Wong keeps it lively without relying on machine gun edits or numbers bunched together, two of the most common blunders found in contemporary musicals. Almost all of the 13 original compositions are memorable, and for the first time in I don’t know how long, I actually exited a theater humming the title tune!

While none of the leads could get arrested as singers, they make the material work in spite of their vocal limitations. At one point, when Ms. Renigen hit and sustained a 30-second High C “C” word, I thought I was watching Colonna: the Musical.

Technically, Colma: the Musical had its local premiere almost a year ago at the San Diego Asian Film Festival and it’s great to see it break free from the festival circuit in hopes of gathering a larger following.

Who would have thought that the musical, a once revered cinematic staple that MTV reduced to box office anathema, would return triumphant in the midst of an otherwise lethal summer season? With Once, Hairspray and now Colma: the Musical, audiences finally have something to sing about.

Rating: Three-and-a-half stars

Directed by Oliver Hirschbiegel and an uncredited James McTeigue

Written by Dave Kajganich

Starring: Nicole Kidman, Daniel Craig, Jeremy Northam & Jeffrey Wright

Running Time: 93 min.

The reason California is the greenest state in the union is due largely in part to the fact that no one recycles more of their own garbage than Hollywood.

Given all the tantrums this column throws over Hollywood’s irrepressible fondness for Xeroxing the past, there remains one story that bears revisiting every 15 years or so.

As critic Dave Kehr noted, “Good allegories never die; they just expand and contract to fit the times.” Up until now, author Jack Finney’s The Body Snatchers had a spotless track record.

Director Don Siegel was the first to adapt Finney’s novel, and his masterful Invasion of the Body Snatchers (1955) represents sci-fi cinema at its zenith. No Central Casting slugs lumbering around a set clad in latex suits or tin can getups; the characters were all relatable suburban types trapped in a world of paranoid uncertainty.

In place of monsters and cheap effects we are instead dealt a timeless tale of a culture being slowly sucked into a state of mass anonymity and lulling conformity by a nameless, faceless horror.

Each subsequent version appeared to be conceived in direct response to an out-of-control menace rapidly overtaking an overly-complacent public. In the 1950s the monster was McCarthyism. When director Philip Kaufman resurrected the material in 1978, his main targets were societal pretense and the dangers of New Age thinking. In 1993, shortly after the Persian Gulf War, Abel Ferrara directed a surprisingly commercial (for him) adaptation set on an Alabama military base. In each instance, the stories in some way reflected their culture.

The timing for an update is perfect. If ever a society, (particularly one popping psychotropic drugs like popcorn shrimp to nullify the effects of the Iraqi invasion,) needed the lessons this terrifying parable has to offer, it’s ours.

After four tries they finally got it wrong. Instead of a topical vivisection, we’re left with Nicole Kidman assuming the Ashley Judd role in yet another mother-in-peril saga.

With the exception of a throwaway line about auctioning off pieces of the space shuttle (that transported the virus to earth) on eBay, there’s nary a drop of social satire. Nor is there much suspense or surprises, particularly if you are even remotely familiar with any of the previous adaptations.

There is one new plot wrinkle. Instead of planting sea pods in the bedroom, those already infected vomit their disease into the food supply – subtle, but effective.

For the first half-hour, it took some doing to get used to Ms. Kidman’s close-ups. Not because of her physical beauty, but because of the washed-out glow emanating from her face. In Mame, they smeared Vaseline across the lens to make Lucille Ball look more youthful. (Instead of 114 she looked a childlike 97.) Unless Max Factor has come up with a new line of phosphorescent base makeup, it appears that Ms. Kidman’s received a digital lift.

Watch the dialog scenes between Kidman and the young boy who plays her son. The kid looks like the nape of Clint Eastwood’s neck compared to the digitally sandblasted superstar.

On an insider’s note, City Beat’s Anders Wright pointed me in the direction of some behind-the-scenes dirt. Warner Bros. apparently slipped a sea pod beneath director Oliver Hirschbiegel’s bed and the poor galoot awoke to find the Wachowski Bros. and their protégée James McTeigue at the helm of his project. The studio, displeased with Hirschbiegel’s handling of the action scenes (not what they thought kids nowadays wanted to see), called upon the trio behind V for Vendetta to liven things up. Word on the street has it that half of the film was scrapped, rewritten and reshot.

If The Invasion tanks, expect a DVD box set with both cuts on shelves in time to spike Halloween sales.

Rating: One star