Category Archives: The Curator of Schlock

The Curator of Schlock #243: Batman vs. Two-Face

28 Friday Sep 2018

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The Curator of Schlock #243 by Jeff Shuster

Batman vs. Two-Face

West and Shatner, together again for the first time.

There’s a new insult making its way throughout cyberspace. It’s all the rage right now to label people who may be the teensiest bit out of touch with modern culture and technology, boomers. If like listening to AC/DC or playing Quake on your Nintendo 64, you’d better watch out. Yeah, well, Quake was a good game and AC/DC is great to blast in the early hours of the morning! And, yes, I watched the series premier of the original Magnum P.I. and I liked it! That doesn’t make me a boomer! So shut up and read this review of a Batman cartoon featuring Adam West and Burt Ward.

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Yes, tonight’s movie is Batman vs. Two-Face from director Rick Morales, an animated feature that’s a tribute to the 1960s Batman series John King is so fond of. It features the voices of Adam West as Batman, Burt Ward as Robin, Julie Newmar as Catwoman, and William Shatner as the sinister Two-Face. For some reason, Two-Face had never made an appearance on the 1960s Batman series. Attempts were made at a script, one penned by the late Harlan Ellison, but the episode was never produced. Kudos to Warner Bros. Animation for finally getting this project off the ground and casting Shatner as Two-Face, the other leading man of 1960s prime time television with that Star Trek show he was on (which I’ve never watched).

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The movie begins with Professor Hugo Strange conducting an experiment at the Gotham State Penitentiary with Batman, Robin, District Attorney Harvey Dent, and a host of other law enforcement officials present. He’s created a machine called the Evil Extractor. By hooking the Joker, the Penguin, the Riddler, Mr. Freeze, and Egghead to the machine, he will extract the evil out of their bodies, turning them into righteous citizens. Unfortunately, there’s no machine on Earth that can handle the evil of this group of super criminals. The evil turns into a noxious green gas, but the machine can’t contain it! An explosions releases the evil gas onto District Attorney Harvey Dent who is now transformed into the villainous Two-Face, half of his face scarred into a monstrous visage.

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What follows is a title sequence showing Two-Face on various crime sprees with Batman and Robin in hot pursuit. It’s kind of like we’re seeing scenes from episodes that never got produced. Cool. Batman and Robin finally capture him, sending Two-Face to the slammer, but he makes a full recovery back to his old self with therapy and plastic surgery. They even offer him the job of Assistant to the Assistant District Attorney, a bit of demotion, but Harvey Dent is eager to regain the public’s trust. Who are we kidding? That’s embarrassing! Assistant to the Assistant District Attorney? Haha!

Batman and Robin tango with other super criminals such as King Tut and the Bookworm all while a shadowy figure lurks in the background, a man that looks and acts just like Two-Face, but how is this possible? Harvey Dent is cured! Or is he?

Whatever.

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You know what, this movie is a worth a look just to hear Adam West and William Shatner hamming it up. Unfortunately, Adam West passed away shortly after the production of this feature, but this is a fitting end to his career. Rest in peace, Caped Crusader.

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

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The Curator of Schlock #242: Batman Ninja

21 Friday Sep 2018

Posted by in animation, Anime, Film, The Curator of Schlock

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The Curator of Schlock #242 by Jeff Shuster

Batman Ninja

Batman + Ancient Japan = Awesome!

Batman Day has come and gone. The Sewer King display at The Museum of Schlock was a resounding success with a whole five patrons’ eyes transfixed on the five animation cells from The Underdwellers episode of Batman: The Animated Series that John King purchased for around $76,000.

Now, while the Sewer King may be my favorite Batman villain, Gorilla Grodd is my favorite DC villain of all time. He’s the Flash’s arch-nemesis, a hyper-intelligent, evolved gorilla with psychic powers. What more can you ask for in a super villain? Imagine my elation that he’s front and center in the Japanese-animated production, Batman Ninja (Ninja Battoman in Japan), from director Junpei Mizusaki with character designs from Takashi Okazaki, the creator of Afro Samurai.

The animation is among the best ever created anywhere.

We will be covering the Japanese language version of this movie not the English language dub which features a different script.

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I don’t even know where to start with this film. There’s a scene toward the end where a giant Batman (composed of thousands of monkeys and flying bats) fist-fights a giant Joker robot composed of mechanized Japanese castles to the tune of Japanese hip hop. It’s movies like these that remind me of why I do what I do.

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Batman Ninja begins with Gorilla Grodd (voiced by Takehito Koyasu) testing out a time/space machine at Arkham Asylum with the inmates as test subjects.  Batman interferes, the machine gets damaged, Batman gets sucked through a vortex, and ends up in Feudal Japan. He skirmishes with some local samurai wearing Joker masks, tries to grapple hook out of there before realizing there are no buildings higher than two stories in the town.

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Turns out the Joker (voiced by Wataru Takagi) and Harley Quinn (voiced by Rie Kugimiya) are in charge of this part of Japan. In fact, several of Batman’s rogues gallery are lords in charge of different territories. These include Two-Face, The Penguin, Poison Ivy, and Deathstroke. Batman learns all of this from Catwoman (voiced by Ai Kakuma) who informs him that she, the villains, and the whole Bat Family arrived in Japan two years before Batman showed up, something about him being the furthest away from the time portal. The Bat Family consists of Nightwing, Robin, Red Robin (I don’t know who that is.), Red Hood (Isn’t he a bad guy?), and Alfred Pennyworth. Alfred has been busy trying to recreate his fine English cooking in Feudal Japan, even going so far as to ferment green tea leaves to make black tea.

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There’s a Bat Ninja clan who believe in a prophesy that a man dressed as a Bat will travel from the future (obviously) and save Japan, restoring order from the chaos.

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What else? Gorilla Grodd wants to turn Japan into a safe haven for simians from all over the world. The Joker and Harley Quinn become poor Japanese farmers after losing their memories only to regain them and become super villains once again. There’s the aforementioned battle between the giant Batman and the giant Joker robot. Robin gets a pet monkey. Or does Red Robin get a pet monkey? I don’t know.

My mind is a scramble right now. Maybe it was seeing Bane portrayed as a sumo wrestler. Or maybe it was that hot springs scene with Gorilla Grodd.

But it was all worth it. Every single human being must watch this masterpiece.

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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.

The Curator of Schlock #241: Batman: Assault on Arkham

14 Friday Sep 2018

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The Curator of Schlock #241 by Jeff Shuster

Batman: Assault on Arkham

More like Deadshot: Assault on Arkham

Welcome back to Batman Month here at The Museum of Schlock, a celebration of all things Batman. I’ve got a great idea for a Batman villain. His name is Mr. Murder. His main gimmick is that he murders people: little old grandmothers, schoolchildren, dog whisperers, personal trainers, you name it. And every time he would taunt Batman about how Batman doesn’t kill the bad guys by the Batman code: don’t kill the bad guy no matter how awful he is. And then Batman will cry as Mr. Murder gets sent to jail promising to break free and murder even more people. I’m going to turn it into a graphic narrative and get it adapted into the next big feature from Warner Bros. Ben Affleck will surely sign on.

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Tonight’s cartoon—I mean animated motion picture—is 2014’s Batman: Assault on Arkham from directors Jay Oliva and Ethan Spaulding. Don’t be expecting too much Batman in this movie. I know it may have Batman in the title, but he’s strictly a side character. This is okay, as there’s some cool stuff in this movie, namely Task Force X, also known as the Suicide Squad. It’s basically a team of incarcerated super villains who the US government employs for dangerous missions in exchange for reduced sentences. Amanda Waller (voiced by CCH Pounder) heads the secret government organization named ARGUS. The movie starts with her sending a black ops team to capture the Riddler at his hideout when Batman (voiced by Kevin Conroy) shows up, beats up the whole team, and rescues the Riddler. Waller gets annoyed and assembles the Suicide Squad.

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We’ve got Deadshot (voiced by Neal McDonough), an international assassin, but he’s the father of a little girl that he wants to get back to so he’s not all bad. There’s KGBeast, a Soviet of some sort who kills people, Black Spider, a vigilante who only kills criminals, Killer Frost, a sexy femme fatale who can freeze people to death with her hands, King Shark, a scary anthropomorphic shark man that likes to eat humans and bathe in their blood, Captain Boomerang, some Aussie guy who can throw any object just like a boomerang, and Harley Quinn, the Joker’s ex-girlfriend who’s a bit unbalanced herself.

Amanda Waller wants them to sneak into Arkham Asylum and find some intelligence files the Riddler stole from ARGUS. All members of the Suicide Squad have explosive nanobots embedded in the back of their necks or some such nonsense. In other words, their heads will explode if they try to make a run for it or disobey a direct order. She makes an example of KGBeast when he tries to leave and his head promptly explodes. We like exploding heads here at The Museum of Schlock (Scanners forever!), so this movie gets a passing grade.

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Meanwhile, Batman is trying to find the location of a dirty bomb the Joker plans to use on Gotham City which leads him to Arkham Asylum. Still, make no mistake, this is Deadshot’s movie. It’s odd having a villain as a protagonist in a Batman movie, but at least he’s not a violent psychopath like the inmates of Arkham Asylum and you’ll be rooting for him when he goes toe to toe with the Joker at the film’s climax. A solid effort from Warner Bros. animation.

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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.

The Curator of Schlock #240: Batman: Under the Red Hood

07 Friday Sep 2018

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The Curator of Schlock #240 by Jeff Shuster

Batman: Under the Red Hood

They killed Robin! How could they do that?

Batman Day may be September 15th, but it’s Batman Month here at The Museum of Schlock. I will be dressed as my favorite Batman villain, the Sewer King, a kind of evil version of Fagin from Oliver! Consider yourself at home! Consider yourself one of the family! We’ve taken to you so strong! It’s clear we’re going to get along—I’m sorry. I break out into song whenever I think of Oliver! Where was I? Something about Batman?

Under the Red Hood poster

Tonight’s feature is 2010’s Batman: Under the Red Hood from director Brandon Vietti. It’s a cartoon as are the other Batman movies we’re featuring this month so if you were hoping for my input on that Batman Killing Superman movie, you’ll have to check back at another time. And while Batman: Under the Red Hood doesn’t feature Batman killing Superman, it does begin with the Joker (voiced by John DiMaggio) beating Robin to death with a crowbar.

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This was inspired by that Death in the Family storyline back in the 80s. I remember that being a thing back in the day. How dare they kill off Robin? Then you find out it wasn’t Dick Grayson they killed off, but Jason Todd and nobody really liked Jason Todd, or so I’ve heard. I didn’t read comics growing up. I was too busy watching good American television like Diff’rent Strokes and Mr. Belvedere.

Ten years pass and Gotham is as much a cesspool as it’s always been. A man known as the Black Mask (voiced by Wade Williams) is running organized crime in Gotham City. He looks like a guy who had a Halloween mask super glued to his face in what I assume was a fraternity prank gone wrong. Black Mask controls the drug trade until another masked man shows up on the scene, the Red Hood (voiced by Jensen Ackles).

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He offers the drug peddlers a deal. Work for the Red Hood instead of the Black Mask and give him forty percent. They just can’t sell drugs to schoolchildren. In exchange, he’ll offer them protection from the Black Mask and the Batman.

Batman (voiced by Bruce Greenwood) is teamed up with Nightwing (voiced by Neil Patrick Harris), the first Robin, Dick Grayson, not the second Robin, Jason Todd, who got murdered by the Joker at the start of the movie. I think some of Red Hood’s goons were stealing a killer robot from the Black Mask who was trying to smuggle it out of the country. Batman and Nightwing destroy the robot, start questioning the goons, but the goons get shot and killed by the Red Hood. As the turf war between the Red Hood and Black Mask escalates, Batman keeps investigating the mysterious Red Hood having a few altercations with him along the way. He seems to know a bit about Batman. He even calls him Bruce. Hmmmmmmmmm…

Later in the movie, Black Mask gets so desperate that he breaks the Joker out of Arkham Asylum to take care of the Red Hood for him.

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That’s never a good idea, and Black Mask knows this, but what choice does he have? It all comes to a head, but I’m not going to give away the twist ending. Tune in next week—same Bat-time, same Bat-channel!

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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.

The Curator of Schlock #239: The Shallows

31 Friday Aug 2018

Posted by in Horror, The Curator of Schlock

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The Curator of Schlock #239 by Jeff Shuster

The Shallows

Have shark, will travel.

I’m not a beach person. I don’t like the beach. Do I need to put it another way? Being a red head means that the sun is an enemy. I don’t tan. I turn into a lobster. And then there’s the water. Why do people like to go in the water? It’s salty. That salt stings the eyes. And then we have all of the living things swimming around in there. Ever been stung by a jellyfish? Well I have! Twice! That’s two times too many.

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Tonight’s movie is 2016’s The Shallows from director Jaurne Collet-Serra. It stars Blake Lively as a surfer/medical student named Nancy Adams. The movie begins with her hitching a ride with a man named Carlos who knows the location of a secluded beach in Baja California. He drops her off and refuses to accept any money for the ride because it was on the way back to his house. Carlos is just a nice guy, but when Nancy asks him what the beach is named, he refuses to tell her. Nancy’s mother had recently died from cancer, and this beach was an important part of her mother’s youth. Nancy wants to reconnect with her mother by surfing some perfect waves on this beautiful beach.

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She meets a couple of surfer dudes. They seem nice enough, but they also refuse to tell her the name of the beach. It’s at this point that I’m wondering what’s going on. What happened at this beach? Is this where La Llorona drowned her children? The surfer dudes leave and Nancy becomes aware of a presence in the water. It’s a school of dolphins! How fun? She decides to surf back to shore. Nancy notices the floating dead carcass of a humpback whale in the distance. Suddenly, a great white shark knocks her off her surfboard!

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I’d take La Lllorona over a great white any day of the week unless, of course, I’m one of La Llorona’s kids. Then I I’m screwed either way. The shark bites Nancy’s leg. She manages to wriggle free and swim her way over to the rotting carcass of the humpback whale. The great white charges the dead whale at ramming speed, knocking poor Nancy back into the water. She manages to swim over to a large rock poking through the surface, scraping her foot on some stinging coral along the way. Nancy isn’t have a good day.

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She makes friends with a wounded seagull, which she names Steven. She manages to suture up the horrible gash in her leg with her earrings or some hooks. I don’t remember. The scene made me queasy. Later, Nancy notices a drunken man asleep on the shore. She yells at him, waking him up. She asks him to grab her cell phone and call for help. He rummages through her bag, pocketing her cell phone for himself. He then sees her fancy surfboard out in the water, another item for the pawnshop. The great white chomps him in half. I could go on, but I think I’ve explained enough of the dire stakes to y’all. Hey, Nancy named the seagull, Steven. Steven Seagull! Do you get it? Ha! Thus ends Sharks & Stalkers Month here at The Museum of Schlock.

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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.

The Curator of Schlock #238: The Boy Next Door

24 Friday Aug 2018

Posted by in Horror, The Curator of Schlock, Uncategorized

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The Curator of Schlock #238 by Jeff Shuster

The Boy Next Door

Shouldn’t it be titled The Boy Next Store?

I want to make it clear that I never watched Star Trek: The Next Generation. That show is for nerds, and we don’t like nerds here at The Museum of Schlock. So while I didn’t watch TNG back in high school, I would often bully and torture poindexters that did. One day when I was giving one of these said poindexters a swirly, he recounted an episode of TNG to me. The crew of the Starship Enterprise discovered an Earthly casino on an alien planet complete with gamblers, cocktail waitresses, dealers, you name it.

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Turns out a bunch of aliens created the casino and filled it with characters from a pulp novel tiled Hotel Royale. A NASA astronaut had it in his possession when he crash landed there with no way home. The aliens felt bad for him and created a little world for him based on the situations and characters from a terrible novel. The astronaut found it unbearable and died a miserable old man.

With my luck, I’d end up on alien planet based on 2015’s The Boy Next Door from director Rob Cohen.  Jennifer Lopez plays Claire Peterson, a high school Classics teacher (obviously).

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Claire’s recently separated from her husband, Garrett (John Corbett of My Big Fat Greek Wedding fame). She’s spending her summer holidays taking care of her son, Kevin (Ian Nelson) and hanging out with her best friend, Vicky Lansing (Kristen Chenoweth), who also happens to be the vice principal at the high school Claire teaches at. Vicky keeps going on about how Claire’s husband had an affair with his secretary in San Francisco and how she smelled like chocolate chip cookies. “Gives a whole new meaning to expression ‘San Francisco treat,’” Vicky says.

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Speaking of treats, a hunky 19-year old stud named Noah Sandborn (Ryan Guzman) has moved next door to Claire. Noah befriends Claire’s son, fixes her garage door, and buys her a first edition of Homer’s The Odyssey. That’s quite a feat considering it was written around 800 BC! And who knew they had bound books back then. Noah’s great taste in literature is equally matched by his six-pack abs and winning smile. He calls her over to his place, something to do with how to properly defrost a chicken, and they spend the night making sweet love.

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Claire regrets it the next morning. She tells Noah it was wrong and can never happen again.

Noah doesn’t accept this and turns into a violent stalker. Dum dum dum! He manages to turn Claire’s son against his father after instructing Kevin on how shoot an orange with a Beretta. Did I mention Noah is a student at Claire’s high school and is enrolled in her Classics class? After Claire keeps rejecting him, he posts photos of their sweet lovemaking all over her English classroom. Claire manages to take them down before her class starts, but knowing now that Noah has the whole thing recorded has her worried.

Vicky and Claire come up with a plan to steal the footage, but this just leads to Vicky getting kidnapped and stabbed to death. Noah then kidnaps her husband and son. He sets a barn on fire. I think Claire gouges Noah’s eye out with her thumb. Oh, and it turns out that Noah murdered his own father by messing with the brakes on his car. Yeah, not a world I would wish to be recreated for me by Extra Terrestrials. Unless they’d let me live in one of the sweet suburban houses with a Playstation 4 and pizza delivery.

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I could think of worse ways to spend the rest of my life.

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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.

The Curator of Schlock #237: Unsane

17 Friday Aug 2018

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The Curator of Schlock #237 by Jefff Shuster

Unsane

I’m not Unsane!

Do you remember Dawson’s Creek? It was the brainchild of Kevin Williamson, the screenwriter of the Scream series of horror movies. It centers around the life of teenager Dawson Leery (James Vanderbeek), an aspiring filmmaker who hopes to be the next Steven Spielberg.

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At some point in the series, the young man becomes embarrassed by his obsession with director Steven Spielberg and declares that he is now a Steven Soderbergh fan.

I’m not sure where I was going with this.

Oh yeah.

Tonight’s movie is 2018’s Unsane from director Steven Soderbergh.

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It doesn’t star James Vanderbeek.

The movie centers around a woman named Sawyer Valentini (Claire Foy). She works a cubical job for some sort of banking institution. One of the early scenes shows her yelling at a customer over the phone. At night, she meets a Tinder date and informs him that the night will go the way he wants it to as long as he doesn’t contact her ever again. They start getting physical back at her place, but Sawyer then freaks out and locks herself in her bathroom. We later learn that Sawyer had a stalker where she lived back East.

There’s a scene where Matt Damon comes tells her all the things she needs to do to avoid being stalked. She can’t be on Facebook even if she sets the privacy settings. She also has to install black bars over her windows. I’m not sure if Matt Damon is playing a character or if this is just a side job of his. Maybe in lieu of pay on the last Jason Bourne movie, he got the Jason Bourne action figure rights.

According to Wikipedia, Sawyer is a “troubled woman.” She decides to seek out therapy at a mental health facility named Highland Creek. Sawyer tells a counselor there that she’s thought about suicide in the past. She fills out some paperwork, hoping to see the counselor on a weekly basis, and is promptly committed to Highland Creek. She calls the police with her one phone call, but the police never show.

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She’s then shoved in a dormitory with the other guests of the facility, including a patient named Violet (Juno Temple) whose idea of a funny joke is throwing used tampons at Sawyer.

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It’s not long before Sawyer freaks out, starts banging on the windows to the alert the orderlies, strikes one of the orderlies in the face, and is promptly sedated. A fellow patient named Nate (Jay Pharoah) tells Sawyer that it’s all a scam, that Highland Creek commits people of sound mind just to get their insurance money. Mental health is a business like any other and Highland Creek needs customers. All Sawyer has to do is play it cool and she should be released in about a week. And then her stalker (Joshua Leonard) gets hired as one of the orderlies.

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Or is it all in her head? Maybe Sawyer is unsane after all.

You see. Spellcheck didn’t okay the word unsane. It’s not a real word. Does Soderbergh think he’s above the King’s English?

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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.

The Curator of Schlock #236: 47 Meters Down

10 Friday Aug 2018

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The Curator of Schlock #236 by Jeff Shuster

47 Meters Down

Mandy Moore in a shark cage.

July 2018 came and went, but brought with it a many splendid thing. Like the trailer for that new Aquaman movie. He’s not wearing the orange trunks, though. He could also do with a shave and a haircut if you ask me, but maybe he’ll work his way up to the Aquaman we know and love.

Still, what July didn’t give us was James Patterson’s The Zoo Season 4. How could they do this to me? In the finale of Season 3, an army of hybrids stormed the wall protecting the remnants of human civilization. I guess James Patterson was too busy palling around with former President Bill Clinton to be bothered to get on the horn with the head CBS to save the greatest summer show in the history of summer shows! James Paterson just doesn’t care. I’ll repeat.  James Patterson just doesn’t care.

But we care here at The Museum of Schlock. Don’t bother with TV shows. They’re a waste of time. Cinema is where it’s at. Tonight we’re watching 2018’s 47 Meters Down from director Johannes Roberts.

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It stars Mandy Moore and Matthew Modine. It’s about two sisters, Lisa (Mandy Moore) and Kate, having a fabulous vacation at a Mexican resort. Or they would be having a fabulous vacation if Lisa wasn’t moping about her ex-boyfriend. Apparently, he left Lisa because she was boring. Details weren’t giving, but I would hazard to guess it had something to do with Lisa’s refusal to wear the Raggedy Ann costume on their anniversary.

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Kate and Lisa meet a couple of local boys who tell them of a crusty, old sailor who takes passengers out to the middle of the ocean, fits them with scuba gear, sticks them in cage, and dunks them in the water so they can see killer sharks up close. Lisa thinks this is dangerous, but Kate reminds Lisa of how boring she is and how boring girls don’t get the guy. Plus, if Lisa posts pictures of herself underwater in a shark cage, surely her ex-boyfriend will come running back to her.

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The crusty, old sailor is played by Matthew Modine. His name is Captain Taylor. And unlike Captain Phillips, he remains the captain throughout the entire movie. There are no emaciated Somalia pirates trying to steal his vessel, mainly because it’s a hunk of junk. Captain Taylor asks them if they are certified scuba divers. Kate says she is. Lisa isn’t a certified scuba diver because being such a thing might make her less boring, but she lies and says she’s certified.

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After boarding the boat, Lisa has some trepidation about going into the cage since it’s rustier than her Spanish language skills. Captain Taylor insists that it’s safe.

A man named Javier (Hey, it’s my Spanish namesake!) proceeds to chum the water with rotten fish parts and blood. Lisa points out that it’s illegal to chum ocean water. Javier asks how else should he get the attention of the sharks? Should he call them? “Hey sharks!” he screams.

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Yes, we hate Javier at this point.

The girls get in the cage and under the sea they go. It’s a magical experience filled with blue luminescence, colorful fish, and aggressive sharks. And then the cage falls 47 meters down. I’m not trying to sound negative, but even Ethan Hunt couldn’t get out of this mess. FYI, this movie is actually adapted from Matthew Modine’s debut novel, Boring Girl Gonna Die in the Shark.

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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.

The Curator of Schlock #235: Jurassic World: Fallen Kingdom vs. Rampage

27 Friday Jul 2018

Posted by in Film, Science Fiction, The Curator of Schlock

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The Curator of Schlock #235 by Jeff Shuster

Jurassic World: Fallen Kingdom vs. Rampage

Why can’t scientists leave well enough alone?

We’re back with another versus column. I tried this last week with Death Wish (1974) and Death Wish (2018) with stellar results if I do say so myself. I had the pleasure of seeing two modern monster movies this month, 2018’s Jurassic World: Fallen Kingdom from director J. A. Bayona and 2018’s Rampage from director Brad Peyton.

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Both are worth seeing (Don’t be a snob!), but only one will emerge victorious. Let’s begin!

Chris Pratt vs. Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson

This is a tough one since I’ve got serious man-crushes on both of these actors. In Rampage, Dwayne Johnson plays Davis Okoye, a primatologist and former US Army special forces soldier. In Jurassic World: Fallen Kingdom, Chris Pratt plays a former US Navy officer and Velociraptor wrangler. I don’t think you need a PHD to be a Velociraptor wrangler. In Rampage, Dwayne Johnson is friends with an albino gorilla. In Jurassic World: Fallen Kingdon, Chris Pratt is friend with a Velociraptor with a blue stripe on its back. In Rampage, Dwayne Johnson puts a sleeper hold on some guy who pees his pants as a result. In Jurassic World: Fallen Kingdom, Chris Pratt avoids getting burned alive by hot lava. I don’t know. Dwayne Johnson is a former WWE superstar from the Attitude Era. Chris Pratt starred on the CW’s Everwood with Treat Williams. Fail!

Winner: Rampage.

Bryce Dallas Howard vs. The Blonde Intern With the Mermaid Hair

Bryce Dallas Howard is a redhead.

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The blonde intern with the mermaid hair (Breanne Hill) is a blonde.

I’m a redhead. I have to support my people.

Winner: Jurassic World: Fallen Kingdom.

Indoraptor vs. Ralph

The Indoraptor is a genetically engineered dinosaur made from the DNA of the Indominus Rex from the first Jurassic World movie. This is kind of a step down if you ask me. It’s basically a super raptor, and a prototype at that. Eh.

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Ralph is a mutated wolf with bat wings and he’s huge!

Winner: Rampage.

Dr. Henry Wu vs. Dr. Kate Caldwell

Dr. Henry Wu (B.D. Wong) is the evil scientist from the Jurassic World movies. He creates destructive, man-eating dinosaur hybrids in a lab for military applications.

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In Rampage, Dr. Kate Caldwell had her gene research stolen by the company she worked for. She hoped to use her research to cure diseases. The evil Energyne Corporation used her research to create monsters. I guess she really isn’t evil after all.

Winner: Jurassic World: Fallen Kingdom

Finale vs. Finale

The finale of Rampage takes place in the city of Chicago. Basically, the gigantic albino ape, the gigantic wolf, and the gigantic crocodile are wreaking havoc on the city, knocking down buildings, eating people, etc. The army is powerless to stop them. It all boils down to The Rock and his lady scientist friend to deliver the anti-mutagen to the mutated animals. The finale of Jurassic World: Fallen Kingdom takes place in the basement of a creepy mansion. The great Toby Jones is auctioning off dinosaurs to the highest bidder of some shady individuals. Not too impressive. If there was an Odessa group bidding on the dinosaurs in the hopes of creating a half raptor/half Hitler hybrid, this might have gotten interesting, but the laying waste to Chicago by a giant crocodile takes the biscuit.

Winner: Rampage.

Let’s tally the votes. Oh, looks like Rampage won. Well, there you have it. Rampage is the top monster movie of 2018—until The Meg comes out.

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Jeffrey Shuster 3

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

The Curator of Schlock #234: A Death Wish Addendum

20 Friday Jul 2018

Posted by in Film, The Curator of Schlock, Uncategorized

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The Curator of Schlock #234

Kersey vs. Kersey (A Death Wish Addendum)

Here we are again. I had a request from my editor last week to compare Charles Bronson’s performance in the original Death Wish to Bruce Willis’s in the remake. My initial reaction was “Charles Bronson gave a performance in the original Death Wish?” Maybe I was being too harsh. He must have been doing something right to get us to follow that character through four sequels. For this week, we will judge both Death Wishes and determine which one is the winner. Then, I will finally put Death Wish behind me, never to mention it again (at least until Death Kiss comes out).

1.      Bronson vs. Willis
Charles Bronson and Bruce Willis are playing two different characters that just happen to be named Paul Kersey. One is a rich architect living in New York City.

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The other is a rich doctor living in Chicago. One has a full head of hair and a boss mustache. The other is clean-shaven and bald. Both suffer the loss of their wives due to a home invasion.

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So in a way, they are the same character. But there is one key difference. After his family is attacked the original Death Wish, Paul Kersey is shown to be afraid of the city he calls home. He works up to becoming a vigilante, first by defending himself from a mugger with sock full of quarters. In the remake, it doesn’t take long for Paul Kersey to embrace vigilante mode. Even before this Kersey gets a gun, he challenges two punks that are harassing some girl on the street. Kersey gets the crap kicked out of him, but he didn’t look the other way when he saw she was in trouble. This is where Bronson has the edge. You do see the fear in his character in the beginning whereas Willis’s character acts like he as nothing left to lose. You don’t get the journey with Willis.

Winner: Death Wish (1974)

2.      Score/Soundtrack

This is a tough one because we do get a decent score by Ludwig Göransson who also composed the soundtracks for Creed and Black Panther. I won’t pick on the remake’s score because it’s better than most Hollywood scores these days, but come on. Nothing will beat the original jazz score by Herbie Hancock. Bonus points for the inclusion of AC/DC’s “Back in Black” for the remake, but it’s still not enough to push it over the edge.

Winner: Death Wish (1974)

3.      Kersey’s Daughter

We don’t really get to know Paul Kersey’s daughter too well in the original film. After getting attacked, Carol (Kathleen Tolan) falls into a vegetative state before being checked into an asylum run by nuns. One could argue she’s one of the most depressing characters ever. In the remake, she’s an athlete and is studying Krav Maga. Jordan (Camilia Morrone) even manages to knife one of the home invaders before getting shot. Yeah, Jordan Kersey in the remake wins this one.

Winner: Death Wish (2018)

4.      Cinematography

The original Death Wish was shot in that grainy 1974 film stock that adds to the grime of the original. The remake was shot digitally in HD. It’s a personal preference, but I prefer the former. Still, high definition does lend itself well to action movies such as this. But I’m stuck in the past.

Winner: Death Wish (1974)

5.      A Tale of Two Cities

There is nothing more terrifying than 1970s New York City. I know it’s popular to call Chicago the murder capital of the world, but I was in Chicago about two years ago to see a Lush concert at The Vic and the only people I encountered were hipsters. I will say the hotel I stayed at served hardboiled eggs at the free continental breakfast, but that was the only criminal activity I encountered while in Chicago.

Winner: Death Wish (1974)

Four out of five for the original Death Wish, but do check out the remake. It’s still better than Death Wish 5.

Jeffrey Shuster 1

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.