The Curator of Schlock #309 by Jeff Shuster

Galaxina

Is this worse than Casino Royale?

Happy Valentine’s Day. Well, happy Valentine’s Day to everyone else, but me. Beatrice broke up with me about six months ago, complained that I didn’t have a five-year plan. I don’t even know what that means. Maybe I made her watch Howard the Duckone too many times. And I maybe I showed up to our anniversary dinner in a duck costume, but that’s neither here nor there.  Whatever. I’m fine being a bachelor once again…I’m so lonely…

Hey, don’t worry about it. I’ve got a sexy sci-fi film I’d like to recommend to you tonight and by recommend, I mean the exact opposite of recommend. It’s 1980’s Galaxina from director William Sachs. The first thing I decided to do was check to see if William Sachs was involved with Casino Royale, the disastrous James Bond parody from 1967. He was not, but Galaxina is almost as bad as Casino Royale. Film critic Richard Roeper once said that the most offensive thing a comedy could be is to not be funny.

Galaxina is not funny.

The main draw of this motion picture is Dorothy Stratton, 1980’s Playboy Playmate of the Year, starring as Galaxina, an intergalactic police android. Dorothy Stratton could have been the Marilyn Monroe of the 1980s, but her life was tragically cut short. I do feel sorry for her and those who had high hopes for her stardom, but that doesn’t mean I’m going to give this movie a pass. Anyway, Galaxina makes up one member of the crew of the police spaceship Infinity.  She is joined by the moronic Captain Cornelius Butt (Avery Schreiber), manly Sgt. Thor (Stephen Macht), druggie space cowboy Pvt. Buzz (J.D. Hinton), a Confucius impersonator named Sam (Tad Horino), a bat like creature named Maurice (Lionel Mark Smith), and a rock eating alien named Rock-Eater (voiced by Herb Kaplowitz).

Rock-Eater says he eats rocks because it’s how he “gets his rocks off.” This joke is told maybe two or three times in this movie. It wasn’t funny the first time. The movie plays itself off like a parody of Star Trek and Star Wars. You get a brothel filled with aliens instead of a cantina. Captain Butts puts a paper bag over the head of one of the bird-faced prostitutes before taking her upstairs. Ha ha? You get a restaurant that has human meat on the menu. The specialty is “chilled lady fingers.” Ha ha. The barkeep has pointy ears and is named Mr. Spot. Ha ha. You get a gang of bikers who worship their god Harley-David-Son. Ha ha.

Yeah, it’s not funny. I like a good comedy. I’ve probably watched Beverly Hills Cop at least fifty times. You can make a great parody of Star Trek and Star Wars. Galaxy Quest and Spaceballs proved that. Just skip Galaxina. That’s two for two this month. Next week is Disney’s The Black Hole. I could use some cheering up. Disney knows how to deliver those happily ever endings, right?

Jeff Shuster (episode 47, episode 102, episode 124, episode 131, and episode 284) is an MFA graduate from the University of Central Florida.