The Curator of Schlock #105: The Substitute 3

25 Friday Sep 2015

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Jeffrey Shuster, The Curator of Schlock, The Substitute 3

The Curator of Schlock #105 by Jeff Shuster

The Substitute 3: Winner Takes All

There’s no substitute for Treat Williams. Yeah, we’re stuck with him again!

Look, I like Treat Williams. I just don’t know that he was the best pick to play a hardcore mercenary turned high school teacher. How many hardcore mercenary turned high school teachers have you met in your life, Mr. Curator? Well, I’ve met three and they all resembled Tom Berenger, so I don’t want to hear it! Anyway, we continue Back to School Month with The Substitute 3: Winner Takes All from director Robert Radler, if that is his real name.

I have to give credit where credit is due. The Substitute 3: Winner Takes All is a mean movie where mean people do mean things to each other. Treat Williams returns to the role of Karl Tomasson…that’s an odd last name. Is it Nordic? Son of Tomas? Anyway, the movie starts out with Tomasson being held prisoner by some of Slobodan Milošević’s goons. His mercenary partner is beaten into paralysis below the neck so Tomasson suffocates him to death as any good friend would, kills the guards, and skips back to the United States to deliver the guy’s necklace or Medal of Honor or something to that effect to the man’s daughter.

It turns out his friend’s daughter teaches English Literature to a college football team named the Rams. They’re kind of rude in her classroom. They toss the football around when they should be paying attention to the lesson about Thomas Wolfe. She says they’re going to fail the course, which results her getting assaulted after hours by the team and sent to the hospital.

Here’s what I don’t get? Why is this delinquent football team even showing up to class? They don’t want to be there, so why not just intimidate the teacher into keeping their attendance in addition to passing them? If I didn’t know any better, I’d say their attendance is just an excuse to let Tomasson play the role of English Professor. Apparently, he has a Doctorate in Contemporary American Literature.

Ha! He tussles with one of the football players in class when a discussion of Graham Green’s The Quiet American falls on deaf ears. Tomasson comes to the conclusion that the football team is on steroids

Tomasson has his own team this time around. There’s a guy with a ninja sword and another guy that gorges himself on M&M cookies. I don’t know which is more disgusting, the one mercenary who chops arms off with a ninja sword or the other mercenary who slobbers his cookies with split before downing them. That’s what milk’s for!

Claudia Christian plays a mercenary named Andy who Tomasson sends undercover to a wannabe Hooters restaurant so they can find the connection between the evil football team and their connection to the mob.

Tomasson and the cookie monster have her under video surveillance during a wet t-shirt conference. Seeing Treat Williams and some sweaty guy shoving spit-laden M&M cookies in his mouth while they comment on silicone breast being splashed with water in a van that looks like it belongs to a serial killer is not my idea of a good time. The sacrifices I make for this blog!

5 Things I Learned from The Substitute 3: Winner Takes All

Steroids shrink your testicles.
Steroids give you an inflated ego.
Weights can kill!
Eyeglass lenses can kill!
Cars can kill you especially when Treat Williams is behind the wheel and pinning you to a warehouse wall while he steps on the gas.

_______

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

The Curator of Schlock #90: The Legend of Billie Jean

29 Friday May 2015

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The Curator of Schlock #90 by Jeff Shuster

The Legend of Billie Jean

I’ve always loved outlaws or the idea of the outlaw. Maybe it’s because my dad was a police officer. The idea of a hero that is heroic for the defying the law has always fascinated me. Heroes like Robin Hood, Lupin the 3^rd, and now Billie Jean. I’ve always known about this movie due to the fact that it starred Helen Slater, but it only got a DVD release last year.

The Legend of Billie Jean is about Billie Jean (Helen Slater), a high school girl who ends up becoming an outlaw due an unfortunate turn of events. You see her brother Binx…Hold on a sec. Who names their son Binx? Is that even a real name? Let me check. Oooh! Don’t look that up on urbandictionary.com. Some of those definitions are just plain dirty. Anyway, some local hoodlums are picking on Binx (Christian Slater, obviously). By the way, Christian Slater is not Helen Slater’s brother. I found that out from the audio commentary on the Blu-Ray featuring Helen Slater and Yeardley Smith. What does Yeardly mean? Enclosed Meadow? Okay. It’s so weird hearing Helen Slater and the voice of Lisa Simpson on a commentary track.

Yeardley Smith plays the role of Putter, Billie Jean’s best friend and comic relief for the picture. You see, Billy Jean lives a hard life because she “comes from the trailers.” This might explain why the lower middle class kids keep picking on Binx. One of them even steals Binx’s motor scooter, a Honda Elite. Billie Jean goes to the police, but they’re no help.

Detective Ringwald is played by Peter Coyote, and whenever I think of Peter Coyote, I think of that time he served as a sort of a maître d’ during the 2000 Oscars. That was the one where Isaac Hayes disappeared when fog swarmed around him as he was singing “Shaft.” I always suspected Garth Brooks had been involved the disappearance. Or maybe it was Gary Coleman.

Anyway, when Binx goes to get his scooter back, he receives a bashed up scooter and bashed up face. Billie Jean will have none of this. She confronts the bully’s father, the owner of a local tourist trap shop. The bully’s father offers to pay her back in installments in exchange for some sexual favors. Billie Jean fights him off while Binx finds a gun in the guy’s cash register. Binx shoots the storeowner by accident, and they’re on the lam.

You’d think at this point their lives would be over, but it seems that kids in America see Billie Jean as some sort of folk hero. Billie Jean leads a rebellion of children against all of the mean adults in the United States. She cuts her hair short like Joan of Arc and before you know it, every other kid in America is doing the same thing. Her motto is “Fair is Fair,” stemming from the fact that a sleazy shop owner wouldn’t pay for the damages done to her brother’s scooter.

The Legend of Billie Jean is another quintessential 80s flick, and I can’t help, but think that it’s a pro-Generation X movie and an anti-Baby Boomer movie. Maybe this movie was payback for the way Hollywood treated Gen X children on screen during the 70s. At best, Gen X children were portrayed as insufferable brats. At worst, they were literally portrayed as the Antichrist.

Billie Jean was a rallying cry for every Gen Xer to get mad as hell and not take it anymore! Unfortunately, The Man with One Red Shoe opened the same weekend. I don’t blame audiences for that one. Even I’m curious as to why anyone would have one red shoe.

5 Things I Learned from The Legend of Billie Jean

Strawberry is no substitute for vanilla!
Rich peoples’ food tastes different from regular folks food.
Don’t eat twenty Kit Kats. Your tummy won’t like you.
A bag of marbles is still the best defense against a hot pursuit.
Helen Slater could have conquered the world if she had wanted to.

_______

Photo by Leslie Salas

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

The Curator of Schlock #71: Scanners

02 Friday Jan 2015

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David Cronenberg, Jeffrey Shuster, Michael Ironside, Naked Lunch, Patrick McGoohan, Scanners, The Curator of Schlock

The Curator of Schlock #71 by Jeff Shuster

Scanners

Now with More Asterisks!

It’s New Year’s Day and I’m trying to think of something significant to say about the movie Scanners. Actually, it’s technically the day after New Year’s day, if you want to get technical. I think it’s almost 2 A.M. and I have my official Criterion edition DVD of this classic film playing on my Plasma TV. I like the cover of the case. It kind of alludes to a guy’s head exploding, but it does so in an arty way by having the picture break off into these little blocks.

***

Friend of the Museum of Schlock, Dusty Mondy, had shown Scanners to a group of my Orlando writer friends and myself a few months back. One friend became transfixed with the idea that a man could hear the inner voices of everyone all at once. Another friend balked at the scene where that one guy’s head explodes. She exclaimed, “I don’t like heads exploding.”

***

I’ve covered exploding heads on this blog before and I’m sure I will again so in the meantime, I’m going to talk about the exploding head in Scanners. It’s wet. It’s messy. Brain and skull chunks fly all over the place. It’s the reason people went to see this movie. It’s the reason the trailer is all about the exploding head.

***

Michael Ironside makes the guy’s head explode. Michael Ironside is a scary man.

I’ve had many friends refer to him as Michael Ironsides, no doubt alluding to the idea that they’re several sides to his personality. I’m sure there are: cruel, angry, and super-angry.

Michael Ironside played the bad guy in Highlander II: The Quickening and voiced Darkseid on Superman: The Animated Series. He’s the actor you hire to play evil characters and/or Sam Fisher.

***

I got excited when I learned that Patrick Macnee starred in Scanners. He played John Steed on TV’s The Avengers (not to be confused with Marvel’s The Avengers, which I also like due to fact it includes Hulk, Thor, and the gang). I was a little distressed to discover that Patrick Macnee was nowhere to be found in Scanners only to later realize that he was never in the movie to begin with. I had confused Patrick Macnee with Patrick McGoohan. Silly me! I didn’t recognize him with the beard!

***

David Cronenberg directed Scanners. He’s a bit of an odd duck if you don’t mind my saying. He directed Videodrome. That’s the one where James Woods rips a flesh gun out of his stomach. He also directed Naked Lunch.

I seem to remember quite a few prosthetic penises in that movie, and there goes the general audience rating for this blog! Nothing so weird in Scanners, but we do get a scene where the hero merges with a computer and blows up a gas station with his mind.

***

Scanners is about people with telepathic abilities or telekinetic abilities or something to that effect. They scan peoples nervous systems or some such nonsense. I never get why audiences identify with characters that are better than they are like mutants or vampires. It’s usually the mutants and vampires that are ready to enslave or kill off the regular folk of the world. Maybe audiences believe that deep down they’d rather be a mutant, vampire, or scanner. No 9 to 5 job and you get to explode as many heads as you want. What more could you ask for?

Five Things I Learned from Scanners

If you eat leftover food other people leave behind at a mall food court, some people will think you’re disgusting.
Art is the cure for scanning fatigue.
Computers are weak.
So are gas stations.
It took longer for Canada to leave the 1970s behind.

_______

Photo by Leslie Salas

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

Episode 131: A Christmas Radio Play

21 Sunday Dec 2014

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A Christmas Carol, Charles Dickens, Christopher Booth, Jared Silvia, Jeffrey Shuster, Krampus, Melissa Crandall, Santa Claus, Teege Braune

Episode 131 of The Drunken Odyssey, your favorite podcast about creative writing and literature is available on iTunes, or right click here to download.

This week’s episode got a bit out of hand. Jared Silvia tells me that, for legal reasons, this needs to be called a radio play.

Anyway, I talk to Santa, have an interview you have to hear to believe–maybe you still won’t believe it–plus

I replay Melissa Crandall’s personal essay about A Christmas Carol.

NOTES

Pre-order Nathan Holic’s new novel, The Things I Don’t See, here for only $6.

Episode 131 of The Drunken Odyssey, your favorite podcast about creative writing and literature is available on iTunes, or right click here to download.

The Curator of Schlock #60: Nathaniel Hawthorne’s Twice-Told Tales

10 Friday Oct 2014

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adaptation, Beverly Garland, Jeffrey Shuster, Joyce Taylor, Nathaniel Hawthorne, Sebastian Cabot, The Curator of Schlock, Twice-Told Tales, Vincent Price

The Curator of Schlock #60 by Jeff Shuster

Nathaniel Hawthorne’s Twice-Told Tales

(Like twice-baked potatoes, except totally different)

I have a passing familiarity with Nathaniel Hawthorne, and by passing familiarity, I’m referring to time I read the first couple of chapters of The House of the Seven Gables in my 8^th grade English class. I remember there was a big to do about a character from the novel that would dip his biscuits in salt water. I seem to recall the biscuit dipping taking up the majority of our discussion of The House of the Seven Gables. I never did finish that book, but that’s okay since it’s one of the three stories in Nathaniel Hawthorne’s Twice-Told Tales from director Sidney Salkow. Now there have been some unspeakable Hollywood adaptations of Hawthorne’s work before (The Scarlet Letter with Demi Moore comes to mind), but I have faith that Sidney Salkow and a little-known actor named Vincent Price will make this worth our time.

The first twice-told tale is called “Dr. Heidegger’s Experiment,” but don’t get your hopes up. It’s not about some mad scientist creating unnatural things in a lab.

The twice-told tale begins with narration by Vincent Price where he talks about death and dying and mother nature, or something to that effect. I hate it when narrators share pearls of wisdom with the audience. I just want them to get to the story already. My time is valuable.

Anyway, the story is about a couple of old bachelors named Dr. Heidegger (Sebastian Cabot) and Alex (Vincent Price). It’s Dr. Heidegger’s birthday and the two of them are partying down. Alex compliments Dr. Heidegger on his “excellent Port,” but then criticizes Dr. Heidegger for never taking a wife and wasting his life. It is revealed through some expository dialogue that he had a fiancé named Sylvia that dropped dead on his wedding day, and that she now resides in the family crypt.

A lighting bolt blows off the door to mausoleum. Dr. Heidegger and Alex go to inspect the damage. They’re astonished to find the corpse of Sylvia in perfect condition. Apparently, there’s a leak of “fountain of youth” water that can reverse aging and even bring the dead back to life.

They drink the water and become young again, Dr. Heidegger brings Sylvia back from the dead, and then everything goes horribly wrong as expected.

The next twice-told tale is called “Rappaccini’s Daughter,” and it’s about a poisonous plant lady named Beatrice (Joyce Taylor). Giacomo Rappaccini (Vincent Price) is her father who tends to a deadly purple plant. They have a neighbor named Giovanni (Brett Halsey) who makes googly eyes at Beatrice from a balcony overlooking the Rappaccini garden. I guess there’s a bit of that star-crossed lovers thing going on here. Beatrice is forbidden contact with anyone from the outside world, but that doesn’t stop Giovanni from paying her a surprise visit in person. It is then he learns that her touch poisonous like that of the purple plant. Will Beatrice and Giovanni figure out a way to be with each other? Will Vincent Price fall into a poisonous plant and die a horrible death? You’ll just have to find out for yourself.

The final twice-told tale is “The House of the Seven Gables,” and I was disappointed to learn that there was no mention of biscuit dipping of any kind in this adaptation. Fail!

Anyway, this story was kind of hard to follow. Vincent Price plays Gerald Pyncheon shows up to the House of the Seven Gables with his wife Alice (Beverly Garland).

Gerald’s sister Hannah (Jacqueline deWit) tells them that house is cursed and that all of the male heirs die a horrible death in the same blood stained chair year after year.

The house is apparently haunted by a ghost of a man that Gerald’s ancestor betrayed and murdered years ago. Gerald is trying to negotiate a deal with that man’s descendent, Jonathan Maulle(Richard Denning). Gerald needs find out the secret location of a vault that contains some valuable documents. Jonathan refuses to help Gerald because he hates the Pyncheon family for what they did to his ancestor. Jonathan and Alice make googly eyes at each other, and make out for a bit. Gerald drives a pickaxe into his sister’s head, and eventually gets choked to death by a skeletal hand. The house collapses in on itself. The end. I’m sure it was a faithful adaptation other than the biscuit omission.

Five Things I Learned from Nathaniel Hawthorne’s Twice-Told Tales

Firm flesh is a good sign that a corpse is in excellent shape.
Purple poisonous plants petrify pests.
When everyone one of your ancestors has died in the same way in the same house, don’t go into that house!
When the walls start to bleed, get out of the house!
Vincent Price can never get the girl.

_______

Jeffrey Shuster (episode 47, episode 102) is an MFA candidate and instructor at the University of Central Florida

The Curator of Schlock #50: Jeff’s 7 Reasons Not Curate Schlock

01 Friday Aug 2014

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Jeffrey Shuster, Keith Emerson, Star Trek: The Motion Picture, The Curator of Schlock

The Curator of Schlock #50 by Jeff Shuster

Jeff’s 7 Reasons Not Curate Schlock

Curating schlock is not for everyone. I get a lot of would be schlock-meisters poking around this museum, looking for internship opportunities. Well, we just don’t let anyone through these doors. Frankly, if your idea of Schlock is a movie featuring a gorilla dining at TGI Fridays, you just don’t get it. I’m not going to take any of you on as my apprentice, but here are some helpful tips if you want to start your own Museum of Schlock. And yes, I am an expert. This is blog entry number 50 and I don’t care what Malcolm Gladwell claims, whenever someone writes 50 blogs on anything, that makes them an expert.

1. Do not drink grape soda and/or grape juice while typing up your weekly entries. Grape liquids have a tendency slip from your fingers onto the keyboard, ruining any chance you have of getting that Lady Frankenstein review posted before Halloween. In fact, purple drinks in general have a habit of flying all over the place. Try Donald Duck Orange Juice instead. It’s the official drink of the Museum of Schlock, and it’s so revolting that you’ll only lift that can to your lips once.

2. Know that Italian zombies are superior to American zombies. They drink Southern Comfort, attack great white sharks, and can appear out of thin air. Sometimes they’ll appear on scaffolding 15 feet high just so they can jump off and make a fancy entrance. You’ve still got to shoot them in the head like American zombies. Also, don’t confuse cannibals with Italian zombies. Cannibals are people, just like you and me.

3. Blog entries are best written at 5 in the morning the day the blog is due. Sometimes it’s difficult to come up with things to say about a vigilante movie that you haven’t said in the previous 8 vigilante movies you reviewed. That’s where 5-hour Energy comes in handy. This sweet nectar of gods will send a jolt to your system. You’ll know it’s working if your hands start shaking. Avoid pomegranate flavor.

4. Be sure to showcase Star Trek: The Motion Picture to people if you want to ensure they’ll never watch another Star Trek movie again. In fact, it’s a great film to show them if you want to ensure that they’ll never be a fan of science fiction. Now supporters of Star Trek: The Motion Picture may accuse its detractors of not having the “intellectual capacity to comprehend” the movie. What’s to comprehend? A giant space cloud wants to eat the planet Earth, but settles for making star love with the dad from 7^th Heaven. The end.

5. Ignore requests from friends and co-workers about which schlock movies to CURATE. You may hear something along the likes of “Hey, why don’t you review that movie about the killer tire.” Set standards! I can tell you at this establishment we don’t watch movies about killer tires, killer tomatoes, or killer gorillas.

6. You need to know who the greatest film composer of all time is. If you say John Williams, I’ll be tempted to slap you. It’s Keith Emerson, former member of Emerson, Lake, and Powell and master of the Moog. He’s composed scores for such films as Harmagedon, Godzilla Final Wars, Dario Argento’s Inferno, Murderock, and Nighthawks. Yeah, Nighthawks, the movie where Sylvestor Stallone and Billy Dee Williams play two rough and tumble New York City detectives on the heels of a serial killer terrorist, played by the sublime Rutger Hauer. Why haven’t I showcased this movie yet?

7. Making lists is great way to get readers to read your columns. It gives the information in digestible little chunks instead of over loading their corneas. Plus, people love lists: Christmas lists, grocery lists, revenge lists, etc.

_______

Jeffrey Shuster (episode 47, episode 102) is an MFA candidate and instructor at the University of Central Florida.

Episode 102: A Roundtable in Honor of Donald Duck, on his 80th Birthday!

07 Saturday Jun 2014

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102 Ways to Save Money at Walt Disney World, Der Furher’s Face, Dianne Turgeon Richardson, Donald Duck, Donaldism, Dumbbell of the Yukon, Early to Bed, George Plimpton, Jeffrey Shuster, Lewis Hyde, Lou Mongello, Mary Blair, Mousterpiece Theater, RObert Benchley, Saludos Amigos, sean ironman, Teege Braune, The Band Concert, The Clock Watcher, The Symphony Hour, The Three Caballeros, Trickster Makes This World, Walt Disney

Episode 102 of The Drunken Odyssey, your favorite podcast about creative writing and literature is available on iTunes, or right click here to download. On this week’s show, my friends Teege Braune of In Boozo Veritas fame, Sean Ironman of Heroes Never Rust fame, Jeff Shuster, who is the Curator of Schlock, and Dianne Turgeon Richardson join me for a roundtable discussion of Donald Duck on his 80th birthday.

TEXTS DISCUSSED

The Band Concert (1935)

Early to Bed (1941)

The Symphony Hour (1942)

Saludos Amigos Trailer (1942)

Der Furher’s Face (1943)

Commando Duck (1944)

The Clock Watcher (1945)

Dumbbell of the Yukon (1946)

Soup’s On (1948)

Donald Applecore (1952)

Mickey Mouse Club Intro (1955)

Clip from Who Framed Roger Rabbit? (1988, set in 1947)

Commercial for Mousterpiece Theater (1980-something)

NOTES

Dianne Turgeon-Richardson critiqued of the storytelling of Maleficent on her blog.

_______

Episode 102 of The Drunken Odyssey, your favorite podcast about creative writing and literature is available on iTunes, or right click here to download.

The Curator of Schlock #39: Van Damme and Trejo, Together Again for the First Time

16 Friday May 2014

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Danny Trejo, Gabrielle Fitzpatrick, Jaime Pressly, Jean Claude Van Damme, Jeffrey Shuster, Pat Morita, The Curator of Schlock

The Curator of Schlock #39 by Jeffrey Shuster

Desert Heat: Van Damme and Trejo, Together Again for the First Time

In Desert Heat from director John G. Avildsen, Jean-Claude Van Damme plays Eddie Lomax, a motorcycle enthusiast who has given up on life. He drives his Indian out to middle of the desert with a bottle of tequila in one hand and a .45 in the other. When his motorcycle breaks down, Lomax is ready to meet his maker, but sees the ghost of his friend, Johnny Sixtoes (Danny Trejo) instead. Lomax proudly proclaims how he’s going to kill himself, shooting his .45 off at random. Lomax accidently fires off a round at the pickup of some of the local redneck, methamphetamine drug lords and they don’t take too kindly to his drunken antics. They beat him up, shoot him in the shoulder, leave him for dead, and—worst of all—steal his Indian motorcycle.

Johnny Sixtoes shows up, so I guess he wasn’t dead, technically.

I think Lomax and Sixtoes had been in the army and saw some terrible things (which is why Lomax wanted to kill himself), but getting left for dead by rednecky methamphetamine drug-lords would give anyone a reason to live. You know, for revenge. Plus, there’s a waitress in town named Rhonda (Gabrielle Fitzpatrick) who makes an apple pie that puts a smile on Lomax’s face, but one can’t help, but think it’s Rhonda herself that’s putting that smile on his face. Let’s just say there might be wedding bells in their future.

Lomax must take care of the redneck, methamphetamine drug lords first. By the way, they’re known as The Heathens. I probably should have mentioned that earlier so I wouldn’t have to keep repeating redneck, methamphetamine drug lords for the first three paragraphs of this review. Anyway, The Heathens are making life a living hell for the local residents, scaring away elderly tourists, being rude to Rhonda, and harassing Dottie Matthews (Jaime Pressly), the other waitress who works at Rhonda’s diner.

Lomax convinces a rival gang that The Heathens want them dead. He does this by shooting at them and saying he works for The Heathens. He rescues two women from the rival gang who thank him with a tryst in his hotel room.

The hotel is run by an old lady who’s a Christian fundamentalist with a penchant for snake charming and Wild Turkey. You’d think she’d be offended by such lascivious behavior, but she enjoys the show Lomax is putting on.

As the bodies pile up, Lomax employs the services of Jubai Early (Pat Morita), a handyman who’s handy at wrapping dead bodies in plastic wrap before dumping them in a sand pit in the desert. During an attack on The Heathens, Sixtoes gets shot to death, but he comes back at the end of the film riding an Indian motorcycle while the Navajo god Coyote runs alongside him. Perhaps Sixtoes was Coyote all along. Ponder that for awhile.

It’s kept me up at night.

5 Things I Learned from Desert Heat

Tank tops are fashionable as long as you wear a cowboy hat.
You haven’t heard the words apple pie until you’ve heard them with a French accent.
Never send a newbie gang member who’s shy about shooting folks to finish off Van Damme. He won’t see it through.
If you see the ghost of Danny Trejo, good things will follow.
No apple pie is as good as the apple pie made by Rhonda in Desert Heat.

___________

Jeffrey Shuster (episode 47) is an MFA candidate and instructor at the University of Central Florida.

The Curator of Schlock #35: Mortal Kombat

11 Friday Apr 2014

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Christopher Lambert, Jeffrey Shuster, Mortal Kombat, The Curator of Schlock

The Curator of Schlock #35 by Jeffrey Shuster

Mortal Kombat = Mortal Komplicated!

Okay. Time to roll out the big guns (err, fists) with 1995’s Mortal Kombat from director Paul W. S. Anderson.

Oh man. Where do I even begin? Mortal Kombat was the game back the mid 90s. I remember getting my copy of Mortal Kombat II for Super Nintendo at the Suncoast Video in the mall for $59.99. It came with three posters and a cassete tape with the Mortal Kombat theme song on it. Cool beans! But then the Mortal Kombat movie came a few months later and, well, it was a movie. Or a two-hour music video. Ah, who cares? It’s Mortal Kombat!

What’s the plot? The evil sorcerer Shang Tsung is gathering the best martial artists from around the world so he can steal their souls and become all-powerful. He’s joined by Kano, a criminal cyborg, a pair of Chinese assassins named Scorpion and Sub-Zero, and Goro, a big, monster dude with four arms.

The good guys are led by Raiden, the Chinese god of thunder (obviously, Christopher Lambert).

Liu Kang, a Shaolin monk, Johnny Cage, a hotshot Hollywood action star, and Sonya Blade, a Special Forces officer are the film’s protagonists.

This makes things confusing since there are three of them and I don’t know which one I’m supposed to root for. Sonya kills Kano by breaking his neck (they don’t build cyborgs like they used to). Johnny Cage takes out Scorpion (who is really scary since he’s like ghost/undead guy who can breathe fire out of his mouth). Liu Kang fights Sub-Zero and puts him on ice (Ha!). Goro turns out to be rather intimidating since he can grab contestants with his lower arms and pound them with the other two. Johnny Cage avoids this fate by punching Goro in the sweet spot and sending him plummeting over a cliff.

I guess by this point Shang Tsung is getting impatient so he kidnaps Sonja Blade and flees to Outworld, another planet or another dimension or something to that effect.

It’s the place where all the scary bad guys come from. Oh, and I forgot to mention that Shang Tsung isn’t from Earth. He serves the Emperor of Outworld, a mysterious figure who wants to conquer Earth for nefarious purposes. The emperor also has sexy daughter, Princess Kitana, who’s decided to aid Liu Kang in his quest to do something something. Aargh! I can’t keep track of any of this! Why do they have to make movies so complicated?

The highlight fight in the movie is Liu Kang vs. Reptile. There’s something to be said about a watching a guy get kicked through a brick wall, especially when he gets kicked in the face right after getting through the brick wall. It’s the little things life that something something.

Ten Thing I Learned from Mortal Kombat

Don’t trust shape-shifting sorcerers.
When the shape shifting sorcerer turns into your dead brother right before your eyes, it’s not really your dead brother.
Christopher Lambert is good in anything.
You don’t get second chances in Mortal Kombat…unless you’re playing the video game.
Bad guys love to mess with Shaolin monks. Just ask Kwai Chang Caine!
Cyborgs with Australian accents are more intimidating than cyborgs with American accents.
Techno music always accompanies kung fu battles.
Don’t fight a monster dude with four arms. Just don’t do it.
Don’t fight a guy who can freeze you to death with his bare hands.
Don’t enter tournaments hosted by soul eating sorcerers.

___________

Photo by Leslie Salas.

Jeffrey Shuster (episode 47) is an MFA candidate and instructor at the University of Central Florida.

The Curator of Schlock #34: Double Dragon

04 Friday Apr 2014

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Alyssa Milano, Double Dragon, Jeffrey Shuster, Robert Patrick, The Curator of Schlock

The Curator of Schlock #34 by Jeffrey Shuster

Double Dragon: Two for One!

I’ve been getting some complaints that I don’t do enough kung fu movies. Well, I’m afraid my kung fu knowledge ends with Kung Fu: The Legend Continues, the greatest television show of all time. There was this one episode where this evil stage magician was killing audience members with evil magic tricks and it was up to Kwai Chang Caine to stop him. That was a great episode. Anyway, this is a movie blog, not a TV blog. I don’t know much about kung fu movies, but I do know a bit about kung fu video games. And I know that movies have been made off of these kung fu video games. So this week’s kung fu extravaganza is none other than 1994s Double Dragon from director James Yukich.

Okay. So there’s this magic medallion that will give the wearer total control over the body and total control of the soul which means you take total control of a major American city. That city is New Angeles, a post-apocalyptic version of Los Angeles. You see, after the great earthquake, the gangs swarmed the remains of the city. I guess Paul Kersey wasn’t around to take care of business and work some overtime. The police brokered a deal with the gangs. They leave the city alone during the day and they can do whatever they want at night. Combating these gangs is a group known as the Power Corp led by Marian Delario (Alyssa Milano).

If the gangs aren’t bad enough, there’s an evil criminal business tycoon by the name of Koga Shuko (Robert Patrick).

He wants the Double Dragon so he can rule over New Angeles. Unfortunately for Shuko, he only owns half of the medallion, the part the controls the soul. The other half of the medallion(the one that controls the body) is in the possession of two brothers, Billy Lee (Scott Wolf) and Jimmy Lee (Mark Dacascos.) Shuko wants that medallion and will stop at nothing to get it. He pumps the head gang leader so full of steroids that he turned into this mutant freak named Bo Abobo.

There’s a scene where Marian is force-feeding him spinach to make him talk. It’s quite disturbing.

Anyway, as hard as Billy and Jimmy fight against Shoku, he eventually gets both medallions. And then bad things start to happen like Shoku sucking all electricity from the city and summoning demon warriors. Will Jimmy and Billie Lee join up with Power Core and fight with them to save the city? You’ll have to watch to find out. Hey, it’s free on Netfiz.

Ten Things I Learned from Double Dragon

The 90s did not suck.
Scott Wolf acted before Party of Five.
When Robert Patrick gets his tips frosted, he goes to the root.
Double Dragon did not shed light on my Alyssa Milano dream.
Robert Patrick can be surprisingly animated when he’s playing a supervillian.
If your name is Abobo, you deserve the worst the world has to offer you.
Virtual reality games will be all the rage by 2007.
Vanna White makes a swell TV news anchor.
It doesn’t do you any good to stare at photos of bikini wearing women when you’re a mutant freak.
Super villians shouldn’t wear bathrobes. It’s undignified.