22 Saturday Dec 2018
Posted in Christmas, Episode, Hunter S. Thompson
Episode 346 of The Drunken Odyssey, your favorite podcast about creative writing and literature is available on iTunes, or right click here to download.
While I try to get rid of this cold and catch up on some sleep, here’s a vintage recording I acquired through bootleg trading I did in the 1990s. I hope you like it.
(It’s a secret gift that may or may not involve Hunter S. Thompson in some way.)
21 Friday Dec 2018
Posted in Christmas, Film, The Curator of Schlock
The Curator of Schlock #254 by Jeff Shuster
The Sweetest Christmas
Run, run, run as fast as you can.
We’re on week 4 of our Hallmark Christmas extravaganza, a celebration of what one can do with G-rated made-for-TV movies financed by a company that makes its bread and butter off of Christmas Tree ornaments. We will not get an appearance by Santa Claus in this motion picture, in-person or disguised as elementary school janitor. There will be no princes ready to whisk away Lacey Chabert to far off countries that don’t exist in the real world. At least Lacey Chabert plays an aspiring confectionary chef rather than an aspiring fashion designer this time. The name of tonight’s movie is, naturally, The Sweetest Christmas.
fIt’s about a young woman named Kylie Watson (Lacey Chabert) who went to a fancy culinary school and loaded herself up with student loan debt. She moved back to her old hometown to live with her sister and two adorable nieces. Kylie dreams of owning a pastry shop someday. Poor Kylie can’t even get a job as a chef at one of the seven restaurants in her boutique little town. She has to work as a secretary at her boyfriend’s real estate company, Hockey Homes. It sounded like Hockey Holmes. Maybe they spell it Hockee. I could turn on the captions, but maybe you don’t really care. I think you don’t really care.
Kylie ends up breaking up with her boyfriend, Alex (Lane Edwards), after he treats her to a romantic dinner that ends with him asking her to be his office manager rather than become his wife. Things begin looking up for Kylie when she receives a letter that she’s a semi-finalist in a National Gingerbread Baking Contest. Oh boy! Will Kylie be able to pull it off and win the $25,000 grand prize? Will she rekindle the love of an old high school boyfriend who runs the local pizzeria? I don’t want to spoil the movie for you, but it wouldn’t a hallmark movie if everything didn’t turn out just peachy. A Merry Christmas to you and yours from Orlando’s Museum of Schlock. See you next week.
I’m under word count, which means I may not get my Christmas bonus from my editor, John King. How did this happen? Maybe because I’ve got nothing left to say. I mean it’s fine if you like Hallmark movies. Just because they recycle the same plot over and over again. Just because we have the same turgid romance with the Ken Doll of week. Hey, you do you.
But if I may, I’d like to pitch my own Hallmark Christmas movie ideas to the bright bulbs over at the Hallmark Channel.
Rather than having Lacey Chabert playing an aspiring gingerbread chef, why not have her just be an office secretary who had a traumatic experience when she was a child. Maybe a psychopath dressed up as a gingerbread man brutally murdered her parents right in front of her when she was four years-old. Maybe she’s repressed the memory until her boss demands she wear the gingerbread man costume at their annual office Christmas party. Shenanigans ensue.
Think it over. Have your people call my people. We’ll do lunch.
Jeffrey Shuster (episode 47, episode 102, episode 124, episode 131, and episode 284) is an MFA graduate from the University of Central Florida.
14 Friday Dec 2018
Posted in Christmas, Film, The Curator of Schlock
The Curator of Schlock #253 by Jeff Shuster
Hallmark’s A Royal Christmas
One of these things is just like the other.
Earlier this year, I partook in the pop cultural sensation known as Crazy Rich Asians from director Jon M. Chu, a story about a commoner from the United States who falls in love with a supremely handsome and charming young man from another country who turns out to be a veritable prince and heir to a vast family fortune. I recently watched 2014’s A Royal Christmas from director Alex Zamm, a story about a commoner from the United States who falls in love with a supremely handsome and charming young man from another country who turns out to be a literal prince and heir to a vast family fortune. Yes, these two movies have the same plot, but one is about Christmas so that’s what we’re covering this week.
This is the second Lacey Chabert Christmas movie I’ve seen where Folger’s coffee could be prominently seen. I don’t want accuse the greeting card company that produced this of shameless product placement, but the first time we see the romantic lead, he’s holding a rather large Wal~Mart bag. Lacey Chabert plays Emily Taylor, the daughter of the town tailor who has dreams of becoming a fashion designer one day. I’m just going to point out that this is the second Hallmark Christmas movie where Lacey Chabert plays a struggling fashion designer.
Emily is seeing the dreamy Leo James (Stephen Hagan), a man who likes to eat pancakes and BLTs, but Mr. Leo James has a secret he’s been keeping from Emily. Mr. Leo James is actually Prince Leopold of Cordinia.
Now many of you may wonder why you’ve never heard of a country named Cordinia. I can answer that for you. Cordinia doesn’t exist. They made up a fake European country for the purposes of the plot. There’s nothing wrong with that. Granted, Crazy Rich Asians treated its audience to the wonders of opulent Singapore, a real country, but we shouldn’t fret over little details like whether or not a country actually exists or not. Leo reveals that he’s a prince to Emily and invites her to spend the holidays with him back home.
It’s in Cordinia that Emily meets Queen Isadora, played by none other than Jane Seymour.
We remember Jane Seymour. She was in that one Battlestar Galactica movie, Battlestar Galactica: The Movie. She was a Bond girl in Live and Let Die. She was also on season four of Smallville, the one where Lana Lang was possessed by the ghost of a dead witch. Ugh. What were they thinking? Clark Kent fights space aliens not witch covens. That season would have been a complete waste if not for the introduction of Erica Durance as Lois Lane, the greatest of all Lois Lanes. I’m talking about Smallville again, aren’t I?
Naturally, Queen Isadora doesn’t approve of her son’s choice in girlfriends. If only Prince Leopold could find another royal to marry instead of tailor’s daughter. She taunts Emily by serving a Cordinian favorite dish of jellied eels, but Emily eats them right up. The palace servants like Emily because she’s a commoner just like them and even Queen Isadora will change her ways and learn the true spirit of Christmas and allow her son to marry Emily. Blah. Blah. Blah. I think Torso is streaming on prime. Smell you later!
Jeffrey Shuster (episode 47, episode 102, episode 124, episode 131, and episode 284) is an MFA graduate from the University of Central Florida.
07 Friday Dec 2018
Posted in Christmas, Film, The Curator of Schlock
The Curator of Schlock #252
A Wish for Christmas
Be my most tasty little dish!
Thus begins week 2 of our Hallmark Christmas Movie Yuletide Extravaganza. I love these movies. They’re like the cozy sweater vest of American cinema. If only they would have a marathon of them in an IMAX theater. I want that full immersion experience in 3D, 4K, and Smell-O-Vision. I want it all! But for now, I have to settle for a 1K, no 3D, and no smells.
Tonight’s Hallmark movie is 2016’s A Wish For Christmasfrom director Christie Will Wolf. This is not to be confused with Hallmark’s A Christmas Wish from 2011. Totally different movie. That one starred Kristy Swanson and was directed by Craig Clyde. We will not be getting to that one this year because we’re only covering the Hallmark Christmas movies featuring Lacey Chabert. That’s right. We’ve got two more weeks of Lacey Chabert so brace yourself.
In A Wish For Christmas, Lacey Chabert plays Sara Thomas, a web designer for an advertising firm out in Chicago, IL. Sara’s Achilles’ heel is that she is a bit on the wishy-washy side. By wishy-washy, I mean she lets everyone at the firm walk all over her. At the company Christmas party, her manager takes all the credit for her Christmas 365 ad campaign, a campaign centered on feeling the Christmas spirit everyday of the year. His name is Dirk, and he’s a bit of a jerk. The head of the company, Peter Williams (Paul Greene), is very impressed by Dirk’s idea which is too bad because Peter is very handsome and Sara has a bit of a crush on him. If only Peter knew it was Sara’s idea.
Sara decides to leave the party, but runs into a man dressed like Santa Claus in the lobby. He asks her what her Christmas wish would be. Sara says she wishes she had the courage to stand up for herself. Santa says he and the elves might have some difficulty with that. Wouldn’t she rather have a million dollars? Nope. Sara insists on getting courage for Christmas. Personally, I would have picked the million dollars. Then I could just hire some guys to beat up Dirk. Anyway, the wish works because Sara tells off Dirk in front of everyone at the party, saying how he stole her ideas. For shame!
Sara almost quits the firm altogether when dreamy Peter Williams gives her a promotion and wants her to travel with to Seattle to pitch her idea to some big wig named Wilson. Upon arriving in Seattle, they learn that Wilson cancelled their meeting because he decided to go with another firm’s ad campaign. Sara is having none of that, insisting that Wilson hear their pitch since they flew all that way. Wilson’s secretary manages to reschedule the pitch for the next morning, but Sara and Peter will have to journey to a small town in northern Washington to meet Wilson. In a bit of a twist, this small town just happens to be Peter’s hometown.
Let’s see. What else? Peter hates Christmas because he had a falling out with his dad one Christmas years ago when he decided not to follow in his dad’s footsteps and become a lawyer. Sara manages to use her newfound courage super power to coax Peter to visit his family, decorate some Christmas cookies, and patch things up with his dad. But will Sara’s newfound courage power get her to sell the Christmas 365 pitch to Wilson and save Peter’s company? Or will Sara find that she had the courage deep inside her all along? Is anyone still reading this?
Pray for me.
Jeffrey Shuster (episode 47, episode 102, episode 124, episode 131, and episode 284) is an MFA graduate from the University of Central Florida.
01 Saturday Dec 2018
Episode 343 of The Drunken Odyssey, your favorite podcast about creative writing and literature is available on iTunes, or right click here to download.
In this week’s episode, I talk with Vanessa Blakeslee about the new story anthology, A Very Italian Christmas, from New Vessel Press.
In our discussion, we manage to talk about yuletide loneliness, poverty, despair, prostitution, elk herds, Christmas, fascism, prostitution, friendship, Paul Auster’s screenplay for Smoke, and David Sedaris’s classic essay, “Dinah the Christmas Whore.”
TEXTS DISCUSSED
NOTES
Check out Vanessa and I talking about A Very French Christmas from last year.
Check out my interview with Davis Sedaris back on episode 50.
Episode 343 of The Drunken Odyssey, your favorite podcast about creative writing and literature is available on iTunes, or right click here to download.
30 Friday Nov 2018
Posted in Christmas, The Curator of Schlock
The Curator of Schlock #251 by Jeff Shuster
A Christmas Melody
All I want for Christmas is poo.
I’m still reeling from last week’s column on Raw, a French/Belgium production about the trials and tribulations of two sisters who happen to be cannibals. Sometimes you gaze into the abyss and it gazes right back. Other times you gaze into the abyss and the abyss jumps down your throat, claws its way out of your stomach, and then feasts on your organs right in front of you as you bleed out. No more. The Museum of Schlock will only be featuring Hallmark Christmas movies for the foreseeable future.
Tonight’s movie is 2015’s A Christmas Melody, from director Mariah Carey. That’s right. This is singer Mariah Carey’s directorial debut, proving her not only the master of the stage, but of the screen as well. But she is not the star of this motion picture. Not that I’m saying Mariah Carey isn’t a star. Not that I’m saying anything negative about Mariah Carey in any way considering she’s worth 520 million and maybe she’ll read my humble blog and give me some money to pay the exterminator to deal with the cockroaches on the fifth floor.
A Christmas Melody begins with a saleswoman by the name of Kristen (Lacey Chabert) who recently got fired. A homeless man with a suspicious-looking long white beard asks her for money. She gives him the first five dollars she ever made which she framed for some inexplicable reason. You don’t frame money. You spend it. You can even spend it on pretty pictures to stick in that frame. Kristen is also a single mom. Her husband died when their daughter was only two years-old. Kristen had big dreams of becoming a fashion designer in Los Angeles, but now she and her daughter must move back to her hometown of Silver Falls to live with her Aunt Sarah (Kathy Najimy) who runs the town diner.
Out of despair, Kristen makes a Christmas wish to Santa Claus that she and her daughter Emily (Fina Strazza) will find happiness or something to that effect.
What else happens? I think I nodded off at some point. Must have been due to all those turkey leftovers, not this zany romp of a holiday movie. Mariah Carey plays Melissa, the head of the PTA and Kristen’s old high school rival.
She won’t let Kristen’s daughter audition for the Christmas pageant, and she won’t let Kristen design the costumes for the pageant despite Kristen’s fashion expertise. Melissa is a bit of a diva. I’m just saying.
Romance is also in the air. A music teacher by the name of Danny (Brennan Elliott) likes Kristen and by like, I mean he really likes her as in he’s had a crush on her since high school. Danny is super nice. By super nice, I mean really bland and really inoffensive, the sort of guy women in Hallmark World really go for. There’s also a school janitor with a suspiciously long white beard that looks just like the homeless guy Kristen ran into earlier. I’d say more, but I’m past my 500-word minimum and Weird Science is streaming on Prime right now. Why are they wearing bras on their heads?
Photo by Leslie Salas
Jeffrey Shuster (episode 47, episode 102, episode 124, episode 131, and episode 284) is an MFA graduate from the University of Central Florida.
09 Saturday Dec 2017
Episode 291 of The Drunken Odyssey, your favorite podcast about creative writing and literature is available on iTunes, or right click here to download.
In this week’s episode, I talk with Vanessa Blakeslee about the new fiction anthology, A Very French Christmas, from New Vessel Press.
NOTES
Some context for the dubious Dutch tradition of Black Pete.
David Sedaris discusses this in his essay, “6 to 8 Black Men.”
Be sure to check out the music of David Rego, whose song “Harp” appears on this episode.
Dave Rego
Episode 291 of The Drunken Odyssey, your favorite podcast about creative writing and literature is available on iTunes, or right click here to download.
09 Friday Dec 2016
Posted in Christmas, The Curator of Schlock
The Curator of Schlock #164 by Jeff Shuster
Black Christmas
Kill! Kill! Kill! Kill! Kill! Kill! Kill!
Did you know that the English used to tell ghost stories around Christmas time?
No?
Neither did I.
Apparently, this was a thing back in Victorian England. As a proud American, I feel a bit funny about this. In fact, I kind of put a moratorium around this sort of thing around Christmas time. This is supposed to be the feel good season. May our days be merry and bright and all that? Still, our illustrious editor John King pleaded with your curator to supply some Christmas horror movies this year. The post 1980 ban limits my choices, but there is one that’s been on the back burner for a while now: Black Christmas.
Some of you out there don’t like slasher movies, and that’s okay. Some of you out there don’t like horror movies, and that’s okay. Some of you out there would be rude to a middle-aged hostess at an Italian restaurant run by Rocky Balboa, and that’s–no! Nope. That’s not okay. Rocky will give you a talking to. Where was I?
Black Christmas.
Black Christmas is a 1974 slasher movie from director Bob Clark, famous for such horror movies as Children Shouldn’t Play With Dead Things and Dead of Night. It stars Margot Kidder and John Saxon. Margot Kidder guest starred on Smallville. John Saxon did not. He needs to have serious talk with his agent. Yes, I’m talking about Smallville again! When you waste ten years of your life waiting for Clark Kent to put the damn suit on, your regrets are many.
Olivia Hussey also stars in Black Christmas. She played Juliet in Franco Zeffirelli’s adaptation of William Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juliet. We had to watch that one back in my freshman English class. The boys from the first period English class had informed me that I’d be seeing Juliet’s bare breasts and Romeo’s bare butt. I seem to recall a conversation that’s too crude to mention here. Speaking of too crude, Black Christmas starts out with a sorority receiving obscene phone calls from a deranged man talking about his private parts and what he’d like members of the sorority to do to his private parts. The mysterious caller also goes on about his tongue and what he plans to do with it. A member of the sorority named Barbara Courd (Margot Kidder) tells him off. He says that he will kill her.
It turns out the guy is living in the attic of the sorority house. No one notices he’s there until he’s about to murder them. Like their lush of housemother, Mrs. Mac. She has bottles of whiskey hidden all over the house, even in the toilet tank. When one of the sorority girls goes missing, the police mount a search and rescue to no avail. The police finally get around to tracing where the obscene phone calls are coming from and, brace yourself, they’re coming from inside the house!
By the way, it would seem that Bob Clark directed another Christmas classic: A Christmas Story, based on the book by Jean Shepherd. I know TNT runs those A Christmas Story marathons each Christmas. They should switch out Black Christmas for A Christmas Story this year, mix things up a bit. We should start a petition.
_______
Photo by Leslie Salas
Jeffrey Shuster (episode 47, episode 102, episode 124, and episode 131) is an MFA graduate from the University of Central Florida.
10 Thursday Dec 2015
The Lists #27 by Patrick Jehle
Egg Nog Recipe
Do ahead:
2. Also all hope.
3. Dull gag reflexes using fists, feet.
You are now ready to fashion eggnoggal refreshment:
4. Go to a place. Quest, schlep, endure.
5. Obtain nog.
6. Secure the nog.
7. Since whaleshark eggs hatch inside their mothers, these must be obtained the old-fashion way.
8. Be classy about it, all right?
9. Discard any incipient faces or fins. Save huge membranous yellow egg sac for garnish.
10. Beat eggs and cream until you begin to age at random.
11. Put the nog in. Put it in. Now. Before it’s too late.
12. Eggnog should be thick enough to prevent screams from escaping to the surface. Submerge whole cat to test.
13. Shit, this has nutmeg in it, doesn’t it? Just *forget* it at this point.
14. Chug nog. Nogchug.
15. Feel the warm eggal mixture swimming in your stomach.
16. Try to forget that you never, ever wanted this.
_______
Patrick Jehle (Episode 16) is a writer from Brooklyn living in Chicago. Don’t let him in your kitchen.
11 Thursday Dec 2014
The Lists #11 by John King
Less Than Stellar Christmas Gifts That Actually Exist
1. Don’t “feed” Peanut Big Top water, please. Is this how Zayles creates its merchandise?
2. Compete with your friends to clean this dog’s feces. It’s just like real life.
3. According to child psychologists, one thing every matching game for young children needs is more vomit-play.
4. Do you remember the guilty fun you had watching Ahhhnold and Sinbad goof it up in Jingle All the Way? Obviously, this 18-year-old film with the slenderest of premises needs to be a franchise anchored by someone who’ll getter done.
5. Ahem.
6. I am trying to make up my mind if this vintage 1995 collector’s item is less or more disturbing than a normal Barbie. Is there a saw in that medical bag? Ask the seller this question on Ebay.
7.What is a way to tarnish a beloved Joss Whedon work? Convert it into Yahtzee.
Never, ever scream yahtzee.
8. When considering these clunky, four-foot tall Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, you should first ask yourself this question: Is my child fourteen feet tall? If the answer is no, then this present simply tells the recipient, “I know you’ll never have any real friends, so here you go.”
9. While I am a fan of both reading and Star Wars, The Drunken Odyssey must advise against giving this (or any, really) headlamp to a child.
Incidentally, Vader’s helmet comes off to reveal the wrinkled, diseased, gray face of Anakin Skywalker, which only makes this $20 accessory even sadder.
10. The existence of full-body superhero costume-pajamas for men happens to be a disturbing declaration of Everlasting Celibacy.
Seeing the green PJs makes me think of a an immense (and immensely sad) man playing with his four four-foot tall Ninja Turtles, wondering when someone will make him a plastic April O’Neil figure, so his family will be complete.
Will his Christmas wish come true?
_______
John King (Episode, well, all of them) is a podcaster, writer, and ferret wrangler.
