PAPER TOWNS [2015]

Director Jake Schreier, albeit some minor changes, does a pretty faithful job at adapting John Green's coming-of-age novel Paper Towns for the screen.
After a night out of mischief & mayhem, the girl next door runaways, leaving clues to her whereabouts, sending Q & his buddies searching for her during the last days of high school.
Like he did with Robot & Frank, Schreier proves he can juggle humor, warmth, likable characters and just a touch of lingering melancholy & cynicism all to great effect.  There's plenty of 'that would never happen' moments with a heavy helping of clichéd teen film bits but with a cast of actors this charismatic it makes it easier to digest.  It's a pretty safe indie-music filled film the leaves a smile on one's face even if Sea World is no where to be seen.

3½ Black Santas out of 5

SCOUTS GUIDE TO THE ZOMBIE APOCALYPSE [2015]

Paranormal Activity series writer/director Christopher Landon goes for the intentionally silly with yet another zombie-comedy, Scouts Guide to the Zombie Apocalypse.
Three dweeby scouts, in their high school sophomore year, have their close friendship put to the test when their sleepy little town is ravaged by a zombie virus that affects both humans, animals and crazy old cat ladies.
For a movie like this to really work it needs to be scary, original and most of all funny, however here it sort of falters in all those categories.  It's filled with the type of humor a teenage boy would gawk over, one-dimensional large breasted women and plenty of blood spilling all over the screen.  It's pretty bad but somewhat entertaining once the action gets going.   Leading man Tye Sheridan gives the film a bit more heart than the it deserves, while Cloris Leachman & David Koechner's characters are woefully underused because they supplied the biggest laughs.

2 hard-ons for Dolly Parton out of 5