The Curator of Schlock #194: The Earth Dies Screaming

01 Friday Sep 2017

Posted by thedrunkenodyssey in Film, Horror, The Curator of Schlock

The Curator of Schlock #194 by Jeff Shuster

The Earth Dies Screaming

I guess this one doesn’t have a happy ending.

I was at the Orlando Science Center a couple weeks back. While I busied myself with building a tall Popsicle stick tower, I tried selling a couple of visiting school children on The Museum of Schlock. Their response was not kind. I heard such gems as “We don’t care about schlock!” and “Go take a long walk off a short pier.” Now I should make the point that we’re all about science down here at The Museum of Schlock. We flippin’ love science! In fact, this month The Museum of Schlock will introduce our relativity series, a series of science-themed films for your education and enjoyment.

Orlando Science Center by Marc Averette.

Tonight’s feature is 1964’s The Earth Dies Screaming from director Terrence Fisher. I’m familiar with Fisher from all of those gothic horror movies he made for Hammer Studios, so it was interesting to see him take on a science fiction film set in modern England.

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The movie begins with what looks like a train conductor falling asleep on the job. The train crashes a moment later. Another man driving a car falls asleep at the wheel and crashes into a brick wall. A pilot falls asleep and crashes his plane. People all around the world are passed out. Oh wait. They’re not sleeping. They’re dead. Everyone is dead! The whole world is dead!

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But there are still survivors. An American pilot by the name of Jeff Nolan (Willard Parker) meets Quinn Taggart (Dennis Price) and his wife, Peggy (Virginia Field). Jeff is the hero because he’s an American. Quinn is the villain because he pulled a gun on Jeff the moment he saw him and just comes off as weasily. Peggy is the romantic interest because she’s the last single woman on Earth (that bit about her being married to Quinn a lie). We also have a drunk named Edgar (Thorley Walters), his wife, Violet (Vanda Godsell), and a young married couple, Mel and Lorna. We have seven survivors against the world.

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Jeff determines that there must have been a gas attack, based on where everyone was when the rest of the world died, screaming I assume. The only thing coming through on the radio and the television is a strange signal. The band of survivors notices a group of men in silver space suits walking about the town. Maybe it’s the government come to look for survivors. Violet runs off to greet one of them. He turns around and what we see isn’t a man, but a robot! And this is one creepy looking robot too, not the sort you’d have a game of chess with while discussing your feelings. The robot kills Violet by touching her with its glowing hand.

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If that wasn’t bad enough, these robots have the ability to raise the dead. Violet comes back to the group, only her eyes are all puffed out and glazed over. So we’ve got robots and zombies and who knows what else.

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I assume the robots belong to some evil alien race that wants to use the Earth to create some giant space spa. This is what Stephen Hawking keeps warning us about, NASA. Stop sending those satellites out into space with those gold plated Elvis records. You’re just sewing the seeds of our destruction!

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

The Curator of Schlock #191: Black Belly of the Tarantula

11 Friday Aug 2017

Posted by thedrunkenodyssey in Film, The Curator of Schlock

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The Curator of Schlock #191 by Jeff Shuster

Black Belly of the Tarantula

Another score by Morricone? He’s the James Patterson of film composers!

Did any of you ever watch The Wonder Years, that stupid Jean Shepherd wannabe reminiscence show about three kids growing up in the 1960s, a time of turbulent change. There was the everyboy, Kevin Arnold (Fred Savage), girl next store, Winnie Cooper (Danica McKellar), and dorkus malorkus, Paul Pfeiffer (Marilyn Manson). There was one episode where Kevin Arnold befriended some weirdo named Margaret Farquhar only to throw her to the mercy of their cruel middle school classmates at his earliest convenience. Before that happens, Margaret told Kevin a story about how the tarantula species got its name, something to do with them being named after a dance. Fascinating. Rolling Stone ranks The Wonder Years as the 63^rdgreatest TV show of all time so I guess that would make it the winning loser.

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Speaking of tarantulas, this week’s movie is called The Black Belly of the Tarantula, a 1971 giallo film from director Paolo Cavara. Get this: the killer in this movie sneaks up behind women, sticks them with a needle dabbed in wasp venom, temporarily paralyzing them. He then proceeds to carve them up with a knife while they’re conscious of what’s happening to them, but unable to move. That’s pretty sick! I mean, come one. We learn later that it’s a sexual thing for the killer, driven by the fact that his wife ridiculed him over his impotence.

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That is sufficiently disturbing. This time around, the police are actually trying to solve the case! I think the serial killer’s first victim was smuggling cocaine so that piqued their interest. Inspector Tellini (Giancarlo Giannini) is leading the investigation, a world-weary cop with a young wife named Laura (Claudine Auger) who wants to sell the old furniture in their apartment so they can buy new furniture. There’s a hilarious scene where the furniture movers show up right as she’s about to serve dinner. If the movers take the furniture away, she and her husband will have nothing to sleep on that night. Laura tells the movers her husband is a detective and they’d better come back the next day to pick up the furniture. The movers acquiesce to her demands. Mr. and Mrs. Tellini sit down to a tasty roast chicken dinner.

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But yeah, there’s a killer on loose. Again, we have a killer wearing a black trench coat, fedora, and latex gloves instead of black ones. You know, if a guy walks around in a black trench coat, fedora, latex gloves, and an optional tarp over his face, he still may not be a serial killer. Maybe it’s just a fashion statement. Maybe that sharp knife in my front pocket is for scraping the gum off of trees in the park. Uhhh…I’m getting off track again. What’s left?

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There’s an awesome 70s rooftop chase scene where the detectives are chasing after a suspect. Someone falls to his death. Detective Tellini lays a beat down on the killer at the end of the movie. I was jumping up and down in my seat as Tellini repeatedly bashed the killer’s head against a wall. You never saw anything that awesome on The Wonder Years. Sigh.

: 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.

The Curator of Schlock #190: Blood and Black Lace

04 Friday Aug 2017

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The Curator of Schlock #190 by Jeff Shuster

Blood & Black Lace

Bava! Bava! Bava!

It’s August. It’s hot out. I have to do a theme for this month. I know. Let’s do another Giallo Month. I think I read on a “Best Horror Movies for Summer” list somewhere that giallo movies are good for summer because…I don’t remember. Maybe because Italy is hot? It seems like only yesterday when I venturing into the depths of Italian cinema. Actually, it was June. I covered poliziotteschi movies. I’ve tried to forget about that month, tried to forget about that poor little boy getting shot to death so that rich little boy’s daddy would pay the ransom! Gwaaaah! This world is a living hell!! Hahahahahahahahahahahahahaha…

Uh. Where was I? Oh, yes. Tonight’s movie is the Mario Bava classic from 1964, Blood and Black Lace.

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I’ve got a bit of history with this movie. Years ago I bought a two disc special edition DVD of the film which was anything, but special. It had one of the worst transfers I’d ever seen for a movie on DVD. I’d seen VHS tapes than this faded, discolored print. I was so distracted by the shoddiness of this transfer, trying to envision what the Technicolor glory of the motion picture once was, that I couldn’t pay attention to the plot.

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Turner Classic Movies aired Blood and Black Lace last October and I figured I’d record it to watch at a later date. I decide to watch it. Ron Perlman introduces the movie, calling it one of the earliest slasher movies. The movie starts and I am transfixed by the restored, beauty of the transfer, deep reds, purples, and greens painted with light that only a master like Bava could conceive. This Technicolor marvel proves so distracting that I start losing the plot right off the bat.

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Blood and Black Lace is a whodunit at some kind of fashion school or company. The cast is well-dressed and well-coifed group, beautiful models and fashion designers. It stars Cameron Mitchell, a name I know I should be familiar with, but am not. There’s a guy wearing gray trench coat and gray fedora who’s murdering the women of this model agency. You can’t see his face because it’s wrapped up in some kind of tarp. There’s a particularly gruesome scene of him taking one of the model hands and pressing it against a hot cauldron.

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It’s about this time that I get that itch, the itch to seek this movie out again to add it to my private library, do it right this time.

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Arrow Video has a restored Blu-ray of Blood & Black Lace. Ooh. They have a Steelbook. I always feel funny about buying Steelbooks. They’re so nice to look at, but I always worry about damaging them so I end up removing the Blu-rays and using a separate case for them with a fake cover I printed out from the Internet. I have a DVD obsession. I caught a video on YouTube last night. A camera crew enters the home middle-aged British guy, stuck living in a one-bedroom flat. Piles of books and VHS tapes are strewn around the apartment. He can’t bear to part with any of them. He says the apartment is closing in one him. I imagine myself one day swimming in a sea shiny discs, a collection that will never be complete.

How wonderful.

_______

Jeffrey Shuster 4

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

The Curator of Schlock #189: Rambo III

28 Friday Jul 2017

Posted by thedrunkenodyssey in Film, The Curator of Schlock

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The Curator of Schlock #189 by Jeff Shuster

Rambo III

Rambo versus the USSR!

No blog last week. My MacBook power cord went kaput right before I started the review. This means no Rambo IV review this month. It’s like the fates are trying to prevent me from reviewing Rambo IV, the best Rambo movie. That’s the one where he goes into Burma to rescue a bunch of namby-pamby do-gooders. I think one of them gets fed to a hog. Why would anyone want to eat a pig after it’s feasted on human flesh? I mean, there’s sick and there’s sick. I’ll touch on this more one day, but we’ll wrap up Patriots Month with Rambo III.

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Rambo III begins with John Rambo (Sylvester Stallone) hanging out in Thailand. He keeps getting into stick fights with local street fighters, winning big money that he forks over to Buddhist monks. He’s also been helping them build a temple while enjoying the quiet life. Colonel Trautman (Richard Crenna) shows up, asking Rambo to help him smuggle weapons to freedom fighters in Afghanistan. Rambo says no! He’s done his time! Maybe he’s still bitter about being left to die by the United States government in the last movie. Colonel Trautman gives some speech about how Rambo was a born fighter and that he just chiseled him to perfection or something to that effect. Rambo says no again, and Trautman leaves Rambo to his life of peace and tranquility.

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Colonel Traitman goes off to Afghanistan where his delivery of weapons to local Afghani freedom fighters goes awry. Trautman’s men are killed and he’s taken prisoner by…wait for it…THE SOVIETS! Yes, the evil empire has invaded Afghanistan, making life hell for the tribes living there.

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Their leader is the evil Colonel Alexie Zaysen (Marc de Jonge). His name reminds me of Count Zar Zon, the villain from Starcrash. Huh? According to Wikipedia, his name was Count Zarth Arn. That name is stupid.

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Also, in the trailer for Starcrash, Christopher Plummer clearly states his name as Zar Zon. He was played by Joe Spinell.

Joe Spinell was also in Maniac. That was the movie where Joe Spinell plays a maniac living in New York City.

Rambo3-7 Caroline Munro was in that movie. She was dating Joe Spinell’s character in that movie. Caroline Munro also played Stella Star in Starcrash. Kind of funny how she was the love interest for Joe Spinell in Maniac, but was his arch nemesis in Starcrash.

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Neither of these actors star in Rambo III. You might be wondering where I’m going with this and I don’t know. I’ve lost the plot.

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Okay. I have to wrap this up. Rambo saunters off to Afghanistan to rescue his former CO. He befriends a street urchin named Hamid, plays toss the sheep with the Mujahideen, kills some Soviets, rams a tank into a chopper, and guts the leader of the Burmese army like a fish. Yeah, you see his guts fall out and everything! Oh wait! That was the end of Rambo IV also known as John Rambo also known as Rambo. It’s late. I’m tired. Before I go, an obituary.

George Romero

February 4^th, 1940 to July 16, 2017

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For many people, and myself, George Romero was the gatekeeper to the modern horror movie. Frankly, one could argue he invented the genre. His Living Dead trilogy is my favorite trilogy of all time. I covered Dawn of the Dead. I will get to the other two someday. And I will watch Knightriders. Rest in peace, George. You will be missed.

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.

The Rogue’s Guide to Shakespeare on Film #59: Othello (1951)

23 Sunday Jul 2017

Posted by thedrunkenodyssey in Film, Horror, Shakespeare, The Rogue's Guide to Shakespeare on Film

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Micheál MacLiammóir, Orson Welles

Rogues Guide to Shakes on Film 3

59. Orson Welles’s Othello (1951)

Othello poster

Orson Welles’s Othello opens with some weird music by Alberto Barbers and/or Angelo Francesco Lavagnino that splits the difference between a Modernist march and Gregorian chant during the funeral march of the Moor and Desdemona, with Iago brought along, caged in captivity, like some dolorous triumph. The tragic destinies are foretold rather than having any opening credits.

The film is in black and white, which may have turned off 1951 audiences. The restored version, however, makes the scenes look crisp, and so the black and white adds an antiquarian touch rather than just making the film look moldy. While I would have adored to see more of Venice, since the Venice scenes take place at night, perhaps black and white is just as well.

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I say this with hesitant irony, since Othello is a play in part about the uses made of the color of a man’s skin. White actors who portray the Moor these days forgo the unpleasant tradition of blackface. Ideally, since there are only two black parts in Shakespeare (Othello and Aaron in Titus Andronicus), the parts could be reserved for black actors, even in these times of color-blind casting.

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While I shrink from the practice of blackface, though, I don’t find it dreadfully offensive in the case of Welles. In black and white, it looks natural enough, and doesn’t impart direct associations with minstrelsy, although again I might have preferred to see Welles tackle Iago and grant the Moor’s part to a black actor. As weird as the casting of a white man in black make-up might seem to us now, the practice was considered totally normal in Welles’s time.

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And Micheál MacLiammóir as Iago brings to mind the importance of Iago’s lack of something, some lack of charisma despite being eloquent and shrewd in the ways of Machiavellian political intrigue. I don’t mean that MacLiammóir is a poor actor, for that is certainly not the case. But physically, MacLiammóir looks rather skinny and average, bland compared to Othello and Michael Cassio. Kenneth Branagh as Iago is too handsome for us to sense that his private griefs are that compelling. Branagh makes us believe that Iago’s lies feel like truth to him, as a compulsive liar begins to have difficulty recognizing the difference. Butit’s difficult to believe he didn’t get what he wanted in the first place. MacLiammóir’s Iago is harder to root for, but easier to empathize with. It makes the tragic destructions of Othello feel less wanton and more tragic.

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The sense of Othello’s testimony before the council regarding his courtship of Desdemona comes off poignantly in Welles’s mouth. Othello declares,

Rude am I in my speech,
And little bless’d with the soft phrase of peace:
For since these arms of mine had seven years’ pith,
Till now some nine moons wasted, they have used
Their dearest action in the tented field,
And little of this great world can I speak,
More than pertains to feats of broil and battle,
And therefore little shall I grace my cause
In speaking for myself. Yet, by your gracious patience,
I will a round unvarnish’d tale deliver
Of my whole course of love; what drugs, what charms,
What conjuration and what mighty magic,
For such proceeding I am charged withal,
I won his daughter.

Othello seems to be protesting the rudeness of his speech too much since his tale does not seem especially “unvarnish’d.” However, addressing these white Europeans with whom he serves, Othello seems to understand that his audience may hear his speech as rude, and is ingratiating them against their presumed racism. (I think of Trump supporters who feel like he has made the executive office “classy” again. Institutional racism means that there is a sliding scale for judgment.) This seems all the more enhanced from Welles’s amazing instrument of a voice. (Lawrence Fishburne’s Caribbean accent as Othello made the speech seem potentially rougher in tongue to Europeans, even though Fishburne’s instrument is excellent as well.)

For textual purists, the director was perhaps too rough with the cuts. Welles has added expository voiceovers to speed the play along, allowing the story to reach its conclusion within about ninety minutes.

Sizanne Cloutier makes for a taut Desdemona. She looks uncannily like a Disney princess in such Renaissance attire, and successfully conveys both a strong, clear will and a heartbreaking innocence.

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The fortress at Cypress, abutting its geometry against the ocean, looks stark, adding to this antiquarian flair.

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One of the later sequences occurs at a sauna. Iago convinced the lovesick dupe, Rodrigo, that he may win Desdemona after all if he will only kill Michael Cassio. Welles has a mandolin playing a gypsy-like tune, and added an essential ingredient to this scene: a poodle. I am not making this up. The scene is so uncanny as to be wholly believable.

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When Iago kills Rodrigo through the floorboards of the sauna, the effect is goofy, yet psychedelically terrifying. Indeed, as the film dispatches its climax, the effect is that of a classic horror film, in which nearly everyone left alive is a monster, imprisoned in the ancient jails of their psyches.

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The gazes of the dying and the damned.

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John King (Episode, well, all of them) holds a PhD in English from Purdue University, and an MFA from New York University. He has reviewed performances for Shakespeare Bulletin.

The Curator of Schlock #188: Rambo: First Blood, Part II

14 Friday Jul 2017

Posted by thedrunkenodyssey in Film, The Curator of Schlock

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The Curator of Schlock #188 by Jeff Shuster

Rambo: First Blood Part II

Rambo: First Blood Part II (It’s worth repeating.)

Oh, I hit pay dirt with this one. I’ve said it before, but I’ll say it again. We don’t do namby-pamby movies here at the Museum of Schlock. What does namby-pamby mean? It’s an adjective used to describe someone as weak, feeble, and cowardly. John Rambo is the exact opposite of namby-pamby. He’s a one-man army. Enjoy the show.

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1985’s Rambo: First Blood Part II from director George P. Cosmatos begins with John Rambo (Sylvester Stallone) doing hard time in prison, smashing rocks and what not. Rambo’s former commander, Colonel Sam Trautman (Richard Crenna), offers him a deal. It seems the United states government needs a special operative to do some recon over in Vietnam, see if there’s any truth to the rumors of American POWs still being held captive over there. A presidential pardon might be in it for him. Rambo agrees to the deal, but I know he’s not doing it for any presidential pardon. He’s doing it for our guys over there.

Rambo ships out to Thailand where he meets up with Colonel Trautman and a government bureaucrat by the name of Marshall Murdock. Rambo is given strict orders to sneak in and just take pictures. Do not engage the enemy! Rambo meets up with Co-Bao (Julia Nickson), a special agent who can sneak him into Vietnam aboard a pirate ship. They have a heart to heart. She tells him war is all she’s ever known and that she wants to live in America. Rambo tells her that there was another kind of war waiting for him when he got back to America. Love is in the air, but they have a mission.

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They make there way to an abandoned Viet Cong camp, but the camp ain’t so abandoned. There are American POWs stuck in rat-infested cages, slowly dying from starvation and disease. Rambo finds one POW strung up in the sun. He frees him, figuring he’s better proof than those photos he was supposed to take. Rambo and company kill some Viet Cong, make their way over to the extraction point, but the chopper doesn’t rescue them. Murdock never expected Rambo to find any POWs over in Vietnam. At least if it was just photos, Murdock could destroy the evidence, but a live POW. Forget about it. That could cause a stink, start the war all over again. Murdock orders his men to leave Rambo and company behind to get captured.

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Rambo is placed in a leach-infested pool of pig excrement when, obviously, the Soviets show up to lend assistance to their Viet Cong buddies. It’s a regular Brotherhood of Evil over there, the enemies of America all gathered in one place.

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Lt. Col. Podovsky (Steven Berkoff) decides to torture Rambo for information by electrocuting him. Our hero escapes the camp with the help of Co-Bao. They share a quiet moment while on the run. She kisses Rambo, asks her to take her back to America with him. Rambo agrees, but a Viet Cong guns her down moments later. With nothing to lose, Rambo goes on a killing spree in an effort to rescue the POWs.

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The carnage that ensues is the stuff of legend, a testament 1980s excess and patriotism.

Jeffrey Shuster 3
Jeffrey Shuster (episode 47, episode 102, episode 124, and episode 131) is an MFA graduate from the University of Central Florida.

The Rogue’s Guide to Shakespeare on Film #57: Gnomeo and Juliet (2011)

09 Sunday Jul 2017

Posted by thedrunkenodyssey in Film, The Rogue's Guide to Shakespeare on Film

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Rogues Guide to Shakes on Film 2

57. Kelly Asbury’s Gnomeo and Juliet (2011)

Gnomeo and Juliet.jpg

Nope.

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John King (Episode, well, all of them) holds a PhD in English from Purdue University, and an MFA from New York University. He has reviewed performances for Shakespeare Bulletin.

The Curator of Schlock #187: First Blood

07 Friday Jul 2017

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The Curator of Schlock #187 by Jeff Shuster

First Blood

They’re not hunting him. He’s hunting them!

Sorry if I freaked out a bit last week. Maybe it’s my delicate sensibilities, but a movie where a ten-year-old boy gets shot and killed because of the decision of some old guys in a board room meeting really ground my gears. My introduction to poliziottesco left me confused and bewildered, questioning the morality of this cruel world, where cops and criminals are no better than each other and the innocent are made to suffer. But then I then celebrated Independence Day, remembered what it is to be an American, where the distinctions between right and wrong are as clear as crystal. I know who the good guys are. I know who the bad guys are. It’s time for another Patriot’s Month, and to celebrate, we’re going through the Rambo series!

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Tonight’s entry is 1982’s First Blood from director Ted Kotcheff and starring Sylvester Stallone. I’m ashamed to admit this, but I am largely unfamiliar with the Rambo series. It must have been an HBO exclusive back in the day. So who will Rambo fight in this debut? The Viet Cong? The Soviets? Nope. He’s up against one jerk of small town sheriff and his band of sadistic deputies. The sheriff’s name is Will Teasle (Brian Dennehy) and he doesn’t like the looks of this drifter that’s passing through his neck of the woods.

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Teasle tells this drifter that he needs a shave and a haircut. The drifter wants to get a bite to eat in the town. Teasle drives him to the city limits, tells the drifter he doesn’t want his kind in his town. As Sherriff Teasle drives away, the drifter starts walking back into town. Teasle arrests him for vagrancy. One of his men snatches the dog tags from around the drifter’s neck. The drifter’s name is John Rambo.

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The deputies begin their abuse on John Rambo. The nastiest is Art Galt (Jack Starrett) who beats Rambo with a baton before turning a hose on him to get him nice and clean. Deputy Galt wants to give Rambo a shave. The razor triggers a Vietnam flashback, making Rambo snap. He breaks a out of the police station, steals a motorcycle and is on the lamb. Teasle follows in close pursuit, but overturns his car as he follows Rambo into the mountains. Things escalate from there. Dobermans are unleashed. Deputy Galt tries shooting Rambo with a sniper rifle from a helicopter only to fall out and die after Rambo throws a rock at the helicopter pilot. Galt was Teasle’s best friend so the sheriff now wants Rambo dead.

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Things keep escalating. The Washington State Police are brought in. The National Guard is brought in. It turns out Rambo is a Green Beret with an expertise guerilla warfare. He received the Congressional Medal of Honor. Woah.

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At some point Rambo blows up half the town. I think a Dairy Queen catches on fire. Rambo cries to his commanding officer about how his best friend in Nam blew up and got his guts all over him. Oh, and Rambo can’t hold down a job at a car wash. I think he gets arrested at the end. This movie is one of the great ones. Plus, the score is Jerry Goldsmith. You can’t go wrong with First Blood.

Jeffrey Shuster 3 Jeffrey Shuster (episode 47, episode 102, episode 124, and episode 131) is an MFA graduate from the University of Central Florida.

The Curator of Schlock #186: Kidnap Syndicate

30 Friday Jun 2017

Posted by thedrunkenodyssey in Film, The Curator of Schlock

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James Mason, Kidnap Syndicate, poliziottesco

The Curator of Schlock #186 by Jeff Shuster

Kidnap Syndicate

And I thought last week’s movie was depressing.

I am in a bad way this week. When you start bashing your head into the bathroom mirror and actually grin as the blood trickles from the cuts on your forehead, it may be time to give up on the film genre known as poliziottesco. Still, I’ve got another Friday left in June so I might as well round it out with one more movie from this genre, 1975’s Kidnap Syndicate from director Fernando Di Leo. Hey, he directed last week’s movie, the one that made me really depressed.

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The American poster for this movie reads, “$15,000,000 or we will kill your kids!”

This is no joke.

That’s the basic plot of this movie.

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There is a crime syndicate in Italy that kidnaps children for money. This particular crime syndicate, we’ll call them the “Kidnap Syndicate,” decides to kidnap the son of wealthy real estate tycoon named Engineer Filippini as played by James Mason.

What?

James Mason is in this movie?

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And he’s in top form! The man is Hollywood royalty as far as I’m concerned. He was Brutus opposite Brando’s Mark Antony in Julius Caesar!

Brutus Caesar

He was Captain Nemo in 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea and Phillip Vandamm in North by Northwest!

Sorry. I got a little star struck there. Yeah, the Kidnap Syndicate sends some goons to Engineer’s son’s school. They kidnap him along with another boy, the son of a man named Mario Colella (Luc Merenda), the struggling owner of an auto garage. Mario isn’t rich, but would sell his business and everything he owns to get his son back. Engineer wants to negotiate. The Kidnap Syndicate wants fifteen million dollars in exchange for the two boys. Engineer offers them nothing at first in an attempt to renegotiate the terms. The Kidnap Syndicate still wants fifteen million dollars. Engineer offers them five million. Nope. The Kidnap Syndicate still wants fifteen million. Engineer offers them six million. The Kidnap Syndicate shoots and kills the Mario’s kid (the poor one), dumping his body in a public place as a warning to Engineer that his son with be next if he doesn’t pay the fifteen million. Engineer relents and pays the full amount. His son is returned to him.

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Well, that got resolved smoother than I expected ,except for the fact that they killed one of the boys! And it was the working class boy with the working class dad! I guess poor boys are just a means to an end. Is that right, Kidnap Syndicate! What you didn’t count was that boy’s dad used to be a criminal himself with an expertise in motor cross. Maybe you should have done your research before murdering his son, an innocent child! Yes, I’m angry. And if you’re wondering where the Italian police were in all of this, well they were just helpless.

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Mario manages to track down the goons and the money. He kills the goons and keeps the money, and don’t you think for one hot second that I give a damn about those goons! He finds the executioner of his son, tells the guy that he’ll return the money to the Kidnap Syndicate if they give him half. In a boardroom meeting, the Kidnap Syndicate debates splitting the money with Mario. Some members argue that should just kill Mario and take the fifteen million dollar loss. The head of the Kidnap Syndicate figures they can give him two million dollars and that will satisfy the father of the dead boy. They ask Mario where he hid the money. He tells board he burned the money and then lights up the room with a machine gun! Hahahahahahaha! And then he chases after his son’s executioner and shoots him to death in a local amusement park. Hahahahahahahahahahahaha!

Hahahahaha

The world is a hell and I’m fine with it! Hahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahaha!

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.

Pensive Prowler #8: Alienating the Alien

19 Monday Jun 2017

Posted by thedrunkenodyssey in Film, Horror, Pensive Prowler

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Pensive Prowler #8 by Dmetri Kakmi

Alienating the Alien

Let’s not mistake this for a review of Ridley Scott’s Alien Covenant. It’s more of a free-wheeling jazz improvisation on what went through my benumbed brain as I watched the vaudevillian pantomime. It’s also full of spoilers. So I recommend you read it and save your pretty pennies for a rainy day.

I am obliged to add that I love Alien (1979) and I’m a hesitant admirer of James Cameron’s overlong and over-militarised Aliens (1986). The subsequent sequels are whipping a dead clotheshorse, particularly the prequel Prometheus (2012), Scott’s poncey incursion into the wrung-out franchise.

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The first thing that must be said about Alien Covenant is that it’s supremely boring. It’s so dull and un-engaging, I felt as if the life was being sucked out of me by a paucity of ideas as I sat in a half daze, barely able to comprehend or care about what was happening on screen.

The words flatulent and pompous drifted around my head like the moons of Uranus during the opening scene. You know you’re in for a slog when a film opens with what appears to be an outtake from Prometheus.

‘Get on with it,’ I mumbled as Guy Pearce and Michael Fassbender had a chinwag about creation and god and music and mortality and tea in minimalist space adorned with great works of art. Prominent among them is Michelangelo’s David, his butt cheeks dangling before our eyes in the foreground of one shot as if he’s about to sit on Michael Fassbender’s face. Better than copping a face-hugger any day.

In the next scene we meet a bunch of starry-eyed colonists going off to ruin another planet. The problem with them is they’re so generic you don’t remember them seconds after they’re shredded by CGI monsters. The usually reliable Billy Cruddup in particular is so like-yeah-whatever he can barely articulate his lines, let alone bring some oomph to his chest-buster scene. Though the lead up to his big moment is genuinely funny.

I fell asleep at one stage and woke up during the best bit: Michael Fassbender performs a kind of G-rated self-suck by kissing himself. Or rather he kisses his android double, before pronouncing the film’s best line:

‘They don’t deserve to start again and I’m not going to let them.’

He’s talking about humans and he succeeds, thankfully.

Actually, that’s not the best part. The best part is James Franco’s early demise. This irritating man-child doesn’t even get a chance to step out of his cryogenic crib before he’s vaporised and jettisoned into outer space. The only time we see his smug mug is when his wife, a second-rate Sigourney Weaver tough-girl type, blubbers to hubby’s video messages. She dodged a bullet is all I can say.

From there on Alien Covenant announces its major theme. Turns out it’s not about something as lowly as slavering monsters munching on people. It’s about male procreation, free of women.

Très très homosexuelle, no, monsieur et madame?

I’m serious. Think about it: Ageing man (Guy Pearce) creates buff male android (Michael Fassbender) in pleasingly tight body suit that shows off perfectly sculpted glutes and pecs. Android bases himself on the homo par excellence, Lawrence of Arabia, turns against big daddy, regurgitates alien eggs and promises to be mother to a loathed and despised species.

If that’s not a queer parable, I don’t know what is. We’ve gone back to sky god Zeus giving birth to Athena by projecting her fully formed from his brow.

In space, it seems, no one can hear women become redundant.

The men in this film reminded me of self-fertilising worms. Or the ouroboros snake that swallows its own tail. No wonder the aliens resemble globular white slugs. There’s even two gay men in the crew. Living up to Hollywood tradition one is mangled early on and his partner gets acid blood sprayed over his face, as if he’s encountered an Islamist in deep space.

So much for diversity and inclusion.

As for the much-talked-about twist ending … well, it’s so lame only Ridley Scott won’t see it coming. The android Walter masquerades as the android David. Too spooky for film school. Oooh, the shiver that didn’t run down my spine. What I want to know is where did Fassbender find a barber and hair dye on that Vidal Sassoon forsaken planet?

I forgot to mention that I laughed aloud when a hooded figure appears out of nowhere to rescue the stranded journeymen. It was as if Alien had suddenly glommed onto Lard of the Rings and Legolas had come to save the film from itself.

You can tell I hated this, can’t you? The first Alien works because of the simplicity of the idea and the purity of execution. Covenant is so busy it forgets it’s a shriek-fest. Scott occasionally remembers and goes, ‘Oh, fuck, we better show the creature before the audience falls asleep.’ Too late!

An early teaser poster showed the alien with the word RUN under it. YAWN would have been more appropriate.

Anyway, I wrote to Ridley Scott and offered some suggestions for improvement.

Dear Ridley,

Alien Covenant would be a better film if you consulted me.

My version is called Alien Convent. Instead of being about planetary settlers fighting hostile aliens (as if we haven’t seen that before), it’s about nuns versus aliens.

You heard right. The reboot needs naked nuns with guns.

Picture it: Ripley is Mother Superior in a convent for the Sisters of Perpetual Indulgence. She’s trying to put the past behind her by settling down with Sister Bertrille from the The Flying Nun TV series. Things are going well until a new devotee arrives. But she is not what she appears. Turns out she’s Sister Ruth, the hot-pants nun from Black Narcissus (look it up) and she carries inside her a xenomorph bambino from a close encounter of the fourth kind in the Himalayan jungle. All hell breaks loose when the alien bursts out of Sister Ruth’s nether lips during a Sadean flagellation session in the basement and it’s on for young and old.

Tarantino could make a good fist of it, in more ways than one.

Love,

Dmetri xx

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dmetri-kakmi

Dmetri Kakmi (Episode 158) is a writer and editor based in Melbourne, Australia. The memoir Mother Land was shortlisted for the New South Wales Premier’s Literary Awards in Australia; and is published in England and Turkey. His essays and short stories appear in anthologies and journals. You can find out more about him here.