Rock N Roll Superstar

Folks, I believe that I may have stumbled across the greatest internet music sensation since Tay Zonday....
Her name is Jan Terri, and although I may be a few years late to this particular bandwagon, I still think I ought to tell you about her.


How to describe Jan Terri? Hmmm....Well, first I'll simply refer you to one of her videos. Made sometime around 1993, this one is called "Losing You", and it's regarded by many as the worst music video of all-time. Trust me, it's worth your while to check this bad boy out:


Ahh, now wasn't that something? Here's the deal:

Jan Terri was a lady in Chicago who wanted to be a recording artist. According to legend, she sang back-up in some bar bands in the 1980s, and by the early 90s had somehow convinced someone to record two full albums with her. She also shot a series of hilariously-bad videos to accompany several of the songs.

Jan worked by day as a limo driver, and would hand out copies of her videos to random passengers. According to Wikipedia, her tapes acquired a certain notoriety among Chicago business types and entertainers (you know -- the kinds of folks that might be riding in limos), who started passing them around as collectibles. But when Internet was born in the mid-90s, Jan's videos immediately went global and found a whole new audience. She was among the first memes; even getting an appearance on Comedy Central's Daily Show in 2000. Check it out:

(The biggest moment of Jan's career.)

So, when Jan Terri went viral, her music career was briefly revived. There was talk that she might make a triumphant return to the recording industry, and someone even made a documentary about her. Oh, and not to mention -- Jan somewhat famously attracted the attention of shock rocker Marylin Manson at one point. Seriously -- they hung out together.

Now, the interesting thing about Jan Terri isn't so much that she is BAD, but that she is bad in an oddly GOOD way. I mean, yes -- her music is God-awful; that's undeniable. Yet, one must admit that the songs are actually a little catchy. How could someone so musically competent be so terrible at the same time???

(Probably Jan's most popular song -- "Get Down Goblin.")

Furthermore, I want to know if Jan actually WROTE her songs, or merely "collaborated" on them with some producer, a-la Britney Spears and every other talentless pop performer. Is this Jan Terri woman a real musician, or just an empty vessel? In some videos, she's shown with a guitar, but it doesn't look to me like she's actually playing it, so the issue remains a mystery. At one point, I also wondered if Jan might be "mentally handicapped," but then I realized that if she were, the authorities probably wouldn't allow her to drive rich people around in a limousine all day for a living. Plus, she's fairly coherent in interviews. Nah, Jan's for real.

Or, maybe she isn't. Could it be that Jan Terri is just a really brilliant comedian? A deep undercover hoax of some kind??? Like one of them fake documentaries that Christopher Guest is always making??? That would make a lot of sense -- if Jan turned out to be a joke...but I don't think she is. I mean, it's been about ten years since she went viral, and there's been nothing new on her since around that time. The prank isn't worth the effort if it's just going to be forgotten.

(My personal favorite of her songs. Check it out.)

No, friends -- Jan Terri is the genuine article; a woman who EARNED her status as a meme. She's bad and good in all of the right ways. There's a charm about Jan Terri that simply cannot be quantified. She's got pizazz -- INTERNET RAZZMATAZZ!!!

I don't care what anyone says, Jan Terri is awesome. If I ever make a movie, I will use her songs in the soundtrack (they'd probably be pretty cheap), and even offer her a cameo of some kind. She should totally release a new album. If she did, I would buy it immediately.


And now I give you one more Jan Terri video of note, "Rock 'N Roll Santa." Fun fact: that's her dad playing Santa Claus. He must be a really good sport. I guess he'd HAVE to be....

Anyway, speaking of things that are low-budget, here's an action-thriller-drama sort of deal from the producer of Reservoir Dogs.

Killing Zoe (1993)
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0110265/


Netflix description:
It's Bastille Day, and the only Parisian bank open for business is about to be robbed -- by a group of hung-over crooks. What's worse, Zed (Eric Stolz) arrives at the heist to find that his paramour from the night before is a bank clerk. Writer-director Roger Avary directs this Gen-X bloodfest with high style and a kinetic intensity that's hard to beat.

The interesting thing about Killing Zoe is the story of how it came to be in the first place. According to a "Making Of..." feature on the DVD, this film was only made because its producers happened to get access to an abandoned bank and wanted to use it for something, ANYTHING. They sent out a call in Hollywood for a script about a bank heist, and the submission they went with was this one from Roger Avery. He whipped it up in a week just to get a shot at making a feature film. Scenarios like this are said to conform to the Roger Corman model of filmmaking -- "if you stumble across an abandoned prison inhabited by a biker gang, just hire some passionate young director and tell him to make the best darn Biker-Gang-In-Prison movie of all-time". Sometimes it works out, and sometimes it doesn't.

So, Killing Zoe is about an American safe cracker named Zed (Eric Stoltz) who takes a trip to Paris and falls in with a group of thieves planning to rob a bank. The night before the big heist, though, Zed decides to have himself a little party, at one point hooking up with a saucy little prostitute named Zoe. A respectably graphic sex scene takes place, and Zed and Zoe part ways. All's well that ends well, right?

Of course not. See, the next day when Zed and his bank robber pals go to pull off the job, it turns out that Zoe actually works by day as a teller at the very same place they're knocking over. She kind of hides off to the side, trying not to be noticed by the thugs as a Mexican stand-off story unfolds. The leader of the bank robber gang is a bit of a loose cannon, and starts killing off hostages while Zed and Zoe do their best to stay out of the way. WILL Zoe survive this nightmare? CAN Zed overcome the guilt of knowing that he's been partly responsible for several murders?? ARE these dudes going to get away with their badly-botched robbery???


Killing Zoe certainly has its moments. As mentioned, the steamy bits early on featuring Zed and Zoe sharing some quality time in the hotel are well-executed, and the tension is high during later standoff scenes. If only the whole picture could have been like that.

But NOOOOOO -- that's not the case. Actually, it takes FOREVER for the film to get to the friggin' bank robbery. In between the early sex scenes and the later action parts, there's a whole TON of tedious filler involving Zed and his bank robber friends hanging out in some night club. It drags on too long; I don't need that much character development to precede the payoff. I mean, the characters in Killing Zoe aren't exactly likable, you know. They ARE murderers, after all (except Zoe). So, why would I want to listen to 25 minutes of inane conversation between them before they bother getting to the point??? I'm frankly not interested in whatever they have to say to each other.

And I never really liked Eric Stoltz, either. He just comes across as a sort of cocky, sleazy hipster kind of guy, and that does not help Killing Zoe. A movie like this needs a hero with whom the audience can sympathize, not some greasy Charlie Sheen wannabe. This guy just wasn't enough to keep me engaged through the whole motion picture.

Look, if it hadn't been for the extended filler material that comes before the bank standoff, Killing Zoe might have been a decent little action-drama. Sadly, this one had pretty much lost me by the halfway mark. It's a nice little experiment that probably deserves a bit of slack, but in the end, too many mistakes are made. It's just sort of Meh.

Oh, and get this (spoiler) -- they never actually kill Zoe. Yeah, the film's TITLE is a friggin' lie!

I give Killing Zoe a....

2 out of 5.

b.