The Curator of Schlock #215: The Last Witch Hunter

16 Friday Feb 2018

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Breck Eisner, Michael Caine, The Last Witch Hunter, Vin Diesel

The Curator of Schlock #215 by Jeff Shuster

The Last Witch Hunter

Time to even the playing field.

We’re down two-for-two when it comes to witches with our last two movies. It’s time we started fighting back.

And who better to do this than the Yul Brynner of our day, Vin Diesel? Maybe you’ve heard of him. He’s just the star of XXX, The Fast and the Furious, and The Chronicles of Riddick. Will lightning strike again? Let’s find out as I cover 2015’s The Last Witch Hunter from director Breck Eisner.

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The movie begins in medieval times with a bunch of knights hunting for some evil entity called the Witch Queen. Apparently, she wants to spread a deadly plague across Europe because she hates what men are doing to the world with their stone castles and what not.

And let me tell you, this witch is a hag.

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And she’s got a coven of witches and/or goblins working for her.

They make short work of these knights with their evil magic. She makes locusts erupt out of one poor sap. But one knight perseveres: Kaulder (Vin Diesel). He drives a fiery iron sword through her heart, but not before she curses him with immortality.

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Ummmmm. That doesn’t sound like much of a curse to me.

I guess his wife and daughter were killed and he wanted to join them in the afterlife. Alas, he now has to wander the Earth forever.

Fast forward to modern time and it seems that a truce has been struck with witches. They can practice magic as long as they don’t use it against humans. Witches are apparently not human. Who knew? An organization called The Order of the Axe and Cross operates out of the Vatican ,in case any witch hunting is needed. And guess who is the top witch hunter? That’s right. It’s Kaulder. The Church provides priests with the title of Dolans. They serve as assistants to Kaulder…or are they supervisors…or partners?

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I can’t keep any of this straight! Was this based on one of those graphic novels I’ve never heard of because comic book stores scare the living daylights out of me? Seriously, it’s like swimming in a sea of arrested development. Just say no. So the 36th Dolan is played by Michael Caine who soon retires. If you ever wanted to see a movie starring Vin Diesel and Michael Caine, this is the movie for you. A young Dolan played by Elijah Wood replaces him. If you ever wanted to see a movie starring Vin Diesel and Elijah Wood, this is the movie for you.

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The Last Witch Hunter is definitely a movie, is my thesis, I guess.

Michael Caine’s character gets cursed by witchcraft and if Kaulder doesn’t get to the bottom of this, Michael Caine, the 36th Dolan, will die. Kaulder and the 37th Dolan, Elijah Wood, find a witch practicing illegal magic, turn him in to some kind of witch council that concludes this witch was working alone. Not satisfied, Kaulder teams up with a witch named Chloe (Rose Leslie), a double cross is revealed, and a defeated enemy blah, blah, blah.

This imaginative world has too many rules I have to learn, and I have a headache.

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 #166: Beyond the Poseidon Adventure

30 Friday Dec 2016

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Beyond the Poseidon Adventure, Irwin Allen, Michael Caine

The Curator of Schlock #166 by Jeff Shuster

Beyond the Poseidon Adventure

That’s Sir Michael Caine

It’s hard to believe that 2016 is almost over…finally. I wouldn’t say that this year has been as excruciating for me as it has for some because I’ve been reviewing nothing but pre-1980 classic schlock. Still, we’ve had a glaring omission here at the Museum of Schlock. We haven’t reviewed one single Michael Caine movie all year. This just isn’t done. For your reading pleasure, may I present the 1979 Irwin Allen classic, Beyond the Poseidon Adventure.

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Did The Poseidon Adventure need a sequel? No. Did The Poseidon Adventure need to be made in the first place? No, but it does stand apart by being one of the few New Year’s themed motion picture series, the first taking place on New Year’s Eve, the second on New Year’s Day. And with this cast is stellar: Michael Caine, Sally Field, Telly Savalas, Karl Malden, Shirley Jones, Jack Warden, Peter Boyle, Mark Harmon, and Slim Pickens! Holy cow! In case you were wondering, Slim Pickens plays a Poseidon waiter who’s pretending to be a Texas oil tycoon. Heaven help me.

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Michael Caine plays Captain Mike Turner, a down on his luck tugboat captain who happens upon the S.S. Poseidon with crewmates Wilbur Hubbard (Karl Malden) and Celeste Whitman (Sally Field). Turner figures there must be bags of money in that ship and claims salvage rights. Is that a thing? It sounds an awful lot like stealing to me. That makes Turner a pirate as far as I‘m concerned. Aaaarrrgh! That’s my imitation of a pirate. Pretty sweet, huh?

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A fancy yacht pulls up next to the upside-down wreckage of the S.S. Poseiden. We see none other than Telly Savalas at the helm. He plays Dr. Stefan Svevo, a medical doctor who wants to offer medical assistance to any survivors onboard. Turner doesn’t have a problem with Svevo and his crew saving lives as long as they keep their hands off the cash. Below deck, they run into to that same fiery pit of boiling water that the last movie ended with. This reminds me of when Nintendo made Super Luigi Bros., a version of Super Mario Bros. that’s played in reverse. I half expected them to find the boiled corpse of Gene Hackman.

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If you like to hear Michael Caine yelling a lot, this is the movie for you. Not since On Deadly Ground have I seen this man so perturbed. They run into some survivors. Peter Boyle’s Frank Mazzetti is particularly obnoxious. He’s always arguing with Turner over which direction to go in, pleads for them to help him find his missing daughter who he’s sure is still alive.

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Turner finds the safe with thousands of gold coins and precious diamonds. The bank won’t be repossessing his tugboat now! If only he can get off the ship with the treasure. This may be difficult. Dr. Svevo is actually a super villain who wants to steal a plutonium cache from the S.S. Poseidon in order to build a nuclear bomb.

Yup.

That’s the plot.

Happy New Year!

_______

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 #78: Harry Brown

27 Friday Feb 2015

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Michael Caine

The Curator of Schlock #78 by Jeff Shuster

Michael Caine is Harry Brown

Michael Caine is ABOVE THE LAW!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Vigilante Month: International Edition continues with a trip to merry old England, only old England ain’t so merry. It seems like a bunch of hoodlums have taken over the city streets and there’s nothing the coppers can do about it. Druggies take shots at mothers with baby carriages. They beat up guys trying to get to their car. They set bonfires in old mens’ apartments. What is with the setting of fires in people’s apartments? An apartment is not a camping ground. “An apartment is not a camping ground.” That’s the quote they’ll remember me by.

The title of this movie is Michael Caine is Harry Brown, which is kind of strange. Has Michael Caine led a double life? If he has, he’s a former Royal Marine who was stationed in Northern Ireland back in the day of incidents that U2 songs are based on. Now he lives in a crappy London apartment. I assume that it’s London. I figure if a movie takes place in a city in England that it must be London. They only have the one city, right?

This movie was awarded lottery money by the UK Film Council. How does that happen? All you need to do to get that money is say you’re going to make a Death Wish 3 remake starring Michael Caine and half the cast of Game of Thrones. It also stars Emily Mortimer as an ineffectual detective who means well, but can’t seem to do anything about all of the murders in Harry’s neighborhood. Of course, once some vigilante action happens, she’ll be right on the case.

Harry Brown has a friend named Len Atwell (David Bradley) who is being terrorized by the local drug pushers. David Bradley gives a wonderful performance in the sense that I actually feel sorry for him rather than wanting him dead like every other character he plays. Too bad his character gets stabbed to death with his own bayonet by a bunch of hoodlums. Harry gets drunk and stabs a mugger to death on the way home. The police fail to get any of the suspects to fess up so Harry decides he needs to get a gun and shoot some people.

He buys the gun from the most emaciated drug addicts in the city. Really these guys are disgusting, all grody and veiny, growing pot and shooting up heroin. Harry is an old codger, but he’s evenly matched with these two freaks. He gets real mad when the head freak’s girlfriend is overdosing and the head freak won’t call an ambulance. A stabbing and a shootout occur, Harry sets fire to a forest of marijuana plants, rescues the girlfriend, steals the drug dealer’s van, and drops the girlfriend off at the hospital. He also steals a bag full of drug money from the van and drops it all off at the local church poor box. I don’t know. This movie almost borders on respectable, and the moment that happens, it’s all over for the vigilante genre. Why does Michael Caine have to ruin everything? Except for Interstellar. I liked that movie. Wormholes are weird!

Five Things I Learned from Michael Caine is Harry Brown

Only Bruce Campbell and Michael Caine deserve to have their name in a title of a movie.
You can’t dress down Emily Mortimer.
Don’t record your stabbing of an old, defenseless pensioner on your cell phone. The video may come back to bite you.
Plastic police shields don’t do much good against Molotov cocktails.
You can’t trust bartenders because they’ll protect their murderous nephews and try to shoot you.

_______

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 #69: The Muppet Christmas Carol

19 Friday Dec 2014

Posted by thedrunkenodyssey in Christmas literature, Film, The Curator of Schlock

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Michael Caine, The Muppets

The Curator of Schlock #69 by Jeffrey Shuster

The Muppet Christmas Carol

Michael Caine Returns to The Museum of Schlock

We’ve gone a whole year without a Michael Caine movie present in The Museum of Schlock. He plays Ebenezer Scrooge in 1992’s The Muppet Christmas Carol from director Brian Henson. So yeah, it’s Muppets and Michael Caine this week on The Curator of Schlock. Now, I had never seen this movie before so I decided to do something a bit different. Instead of a review, here are 22 live observations of The Muppet Christmas Carol as I watched it.

1. Gonzo and Rizzo the Rat are talking to me through my TV screen. Gonzo insists that he’s Charles Dickens.

2. Michael Caine is playing an extra evil Ebenezer Scrooge. Random Muppets and vegetables start singing about how mean he is.

3. Muppets fall behind on their mortgages just like the rest of us.

4. Kermit is Bob Cratchit. Big surprise there.

5. Same Christmas Carol crap! His nephew is too nice! Steven Seagal would have lit Michael Kane on fire by now!

6. Kermit was able to get Christmas Day off. Which is more than I can say for myself all those years toiling at the paper! Claude Thornhill’s Snowfall plays in my head.

7. There are way too many rats in this motion picture.

8. Are these Muppets playing human characters or is this an alternate Victorian London where humans and Muppets coexist peacefully?

9. Scrooge is eating moldy cheese. Ewwwwwwww!!!

10. Jacob and Robert Marley? There was no Robert Marley in the novel!

11. The Muppet of the Ghost of Christmas Past is creeping me out big time!

12. Young Scrooge says, “Who cares about stupid old Christmas?” I care!

13. The Muppet of the Ghost of Christmas Past is still creeping me out big time!

14. Animal!

15. If the Ghost of Christmas Present welcomes Scrooge to Christmas morning then he’s the Ghost of Christmas Yet to Come, not the Ghost of Christmas Present!

16. Michael Caine is dancing with a giant Muppet!

17. I used to have a crush on Miss Piggy. On second thought, don’t print that.

18. Tiny Tim needs to hurry up and die already!

19. No more singing! Please!

20. Ghost of Christmas Future is scary even in Muppet form!

21. Money-grubbing pigs!

22. Please! Please! No more singing!

_______

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

The Curator of Schlock #10: The Hand: A Story about a Phantom Limb (Mwa ha ha ha ha)

11 Friday Oct 2013

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The Curator of Schlock #10 by Jeffrey Shuster

The Hand: A Story about a Phantom Limb (Mwa ha ha ha ha)

1981’s The Hand is a psychological horror movie starring Michael Caine. Over here at The Museum of Schlock, we typically thumb our nose at psychological horror. We want blood and guts and zombies and devil babies. We don’t want to think. Unfortunately, there is a demand for more films starring Michael Caine on this blog and The Hand is the only one I have at the ready. What could possible go wrong?

Michael Caine plays Jon Lansdale, a husband and father who spends all of his time earning a living for his family by drawing a comic strip about a barbarian named Mandro. Lansdale’s wife, Anne, wants a separation so she can find herself in New York City. They get into a fight while she’s driving and Lansdale gets his hand lopped off by an approaching truck. They don’t find his hand in the tall grass, but that’s okay, it’s not like it was his drawing hand or anything…Oh wait. It was his drawing hand. There’s an ugly stub where his drawing hand used to be. Let’s all laugh at Jon Lansdale! Hahahahaha!

Anyway, Lansdale keeps having dreams about his severed hand crawling around all over the place. His wife thinks he should see a shrink, but Lansdale says there are better things to spend their money. Lansdale’s editor hires a new artist to work on his Mandro strip and the new guy wants to make Mandro into a namby-pamby hero because namby-pamby heroes sell. Lansdale’s wife is spending an awful lot of time hanging out with her studly yet sensitive yoga instructor, but they’re just friends. Let’s all laugh at Jon Lansdale! Hahahahaha!

Anyway, Lansdale quits his cartoon strip to teach at a small college out in California. He teaches a class on drawing comic strips to a bunch of students who don’t really like comics. But one of his hot female students has thing for men with scary prosthetic hands. Lansdale likes this girl and even buys her some lingerie. Then he finds out she’s been sleeping with another professor who resembles a rodeo clown. The student and professor end up missing and the audience is treated to scenes of Lansdale’s severed hand attacking and killing these people.

I won’t spoil the ending for you on whether the hand is real or not, whether Lansdale is doing the murders or if the murders are even happening at all. I don’t think that’s the point of the movie. It’s psychological. It’s an exploration of the darker side of human nature. It’s…who am I kidding? It’s about a bunch of characters who deserve to die from the hand of a protagonist we genuinely identify with. This is one of Michael Caine’s best performances. We see his anger bubbling under the surface and exploding out in full force when the scene requires it.

The direction is impeccable. For a movie released in 1981, it’s held up extremely well. There’s a timeless quality to The Hand and it looks better than most movies made today. Pacing is excellent. The director is a little known filmmaker named Oliver Stone. Yes, Oliver Stone made a horror movie featuring a psychotic Michael Caine and his severed hand. And the movie is good. I don’t know what to tell you folks.

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

The Curator of Schlock #3: On Deadly Ground

23 Friday Aug 2013

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Jeffrey Shuster, Michael Caine, On Deadly Ground, The Curator of Schlock

The Curator of Schlock #3 by Jeffrey Shuster

On Deadly Ground: Below the Belt

You can tell Warner Bros. really cared about On Deadly Ground. Not many studios preserve the Pan & Scam jobs–I mean Pan and Scan jobs–they did on movies back in the days of tube TVs. It’s especially prescient for On Deadly Ground which was shot in the scope aspect ratio. Frankly, I think all of those wide angled shots of the glorious Alaskan wilderness would only serve as a distraction from the intricate plot and nuanced performances. On to the review.

1994’s On Deadly Ground was directed by Steven Seagal and starred Steven Seagal (I wonder if he was too pinched for time to score the movie). Anyway, Steven Seagal plays Forrest Taft, an expert at putting out fires at oilrigs and refineries. We’re not sure if we like him at first because he works for an evil oil company, but when some of the evil oil workers are picking on one of the local Inuit, Taft unleashes a world of pain on these flannel wearing losers. Taft’s favorite method of attack is groin kicking and groin grabbing. Taft even manages to get the head bully to play a game of patty cake before breaking the bully’s nose and giving a speech on manhood or something to that effect.

Michael Caine plays Michael Jennings, the evil executive of Aegis Oil. We know he’s evil because he sends his thugs around to intimidate the local natives, pumps toxic sludge back into the wells once he’s sucked all the oil out, orders hit jobs on potential whistleblowers, and uses the pejorative “prick” every chance he gets. When Taft learns that Aegis Oil approved faulty equipment, Jennings decides it’s time Taft had a little accident. Jennings has another oil rig set on fire and when Taft goes to put it out there’s this huge explosion, but he is rescued by an Inuit Tribe who heal his wounds. Taft goes on a vision quest where he wrestles a bear and decides that it’s time to take out Aegis Oil. He’ll do this by blowing up the main oil refinery and killing Jennings’ henchmen in a variety of creative ways.

One of these henchmen is played by R. Lee Ermey, who explains succinctly who Forrest Taft is. Ermey says, “He’s the kind of guy who’d drink a gallon of gasoline so he can piss in your campfire. You could drop this guy off at the Arctic Circle wearing a pair of bikini underwear, without his toothbrush and tomorrow afternoon he’s gonna show up at your poolside with a million-dollar smile and a fistful of pesos. “ Who knew R. Lee Ermey was a romantic?

Ten Things I Learned From On Deadly Ground

Oil sludge pipes have bright yellow labels on them that say oil sludge.
If you have your shotgun pointed at Steven Seagal, don’t let him grab it away from you because he’ll just blow a hole in your stomach.
You can make an oil refinery implode instead explode, causing no harm to the environment.
If you’re a henchman trying to escape a blazing oil refinery, don’t drive straight into an oil tanker.
If you’re a henchman, don’t try and bargain with Steven Seagal. He’ll just throw you into a propeller blade.
Good guys can wear yellow.
Don’t throw beer in a native Alaskan’s face or Steven Seagal will crush your nuts.
Constantly calling people “pricks” is not the best way to win friends.
If you go on a vision quest, you get see naked women dancing.
When on a vision quest, don’t try to wrestle a bear because he’ll just toss your sorry keester into the river.

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

The Curator of Schlock #2: The Swarm

16 Friday Aug 2013

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Irwin Allen, Michael Caine, Movies, The Curator of Schlock, The Swarm

The Curator of Schlock #2 by Jeffrey Shuster

The Swarm: Bees Kill!

I know there are some of you out there that find the idea of a zombie apocalypse preposterous beyond belief. Okay then. How about bees? African Killer Bees! Ladies and gentlemen, I give you 1978’s The Swarm directed by the “master of disaster” himself Irwin Allen.

Let’s start off with the cast. It’s huge! We have Michael Caine, Katherine Ross, Richard Widmark, Richard Chamberlain, Olivia de Havilland, Ben Johnson, Lee Grant, Jose Ferrer, Patty Duke, Slim Pickens, Bradford Dillman, Fred MacMurray, and Henry Fonda. I know this because there are all of these little mug shots at the bottom of the poster. People needed to know what they were getting for their $2.34 back in 1978. Of course, the real star of the film is the swarm itself and we get to watch with horror and delight the havoc they wreak on this impressive cast.

What’s the plot? A swarm of African Killer Bees has decided to invade the United States and kill every American, starting with the charming, small town of Maryville. It’s up to Dr. Bradford Crane(Michael Caine,) a quirky, sunflower seed munching etymologist to save the day. Dr. Crane hates it when people call insects bugs, especially when said people are General Slater as played by Richard Widmark. General Slater wants to kill all of the bees with deadly pesticides, but Crane wants to use environmentally friendly pesticides so as not to kill the American bee. Richard Chamberlain plays Dr. Hubbard who doesn’t like Dr. Crane because Crane calls them African Killer Bees instead of Brazilian Killer Bees. Hubbard also has a bee in his bonnet about nuclear power plants because of the nuke factor. Henry Fonda plays Dr. Walter Krim, a scientist who is desperately trying to find a cure for the African/Brazilian Killer Bee venom. Dr. Krim tries the cure on himself and his heart explodes so I guess that didn’t work.

That’s not to say that the ladies in The Swarm have nothing to do. Patty Duke plays Rita, a pregnant waitress who falls in love with her doctor after he delivers her baby. We even have a love triangle between school principal Maureen Schuster(Olivia de Havilland), bad boy Felix Austin (Ben Johnson), and droopy town Mayor Clarence Tuttle (Fred MacMurray). Both Felix and Clarence ask Maureen to marry them, but we never find out who she chooses since the three of them get evacuated on a train out of Maryville, only to die soon after as the swarm derails the train off a mountain.

Dr. Hubbard seems convinced that the bees will attack the nearest nuclear power plant next. As he argues with the plant manager, the swarm attacks, killing every power plant worker which results a nuclear explosion. The President of United doesn’t like nuclear power plants blowing up so he takes Dr. Crane off the taskforce and puts General Slater in charge as the swarm heads towards Houston. After General Slater’s deadly pesticides have no effect on the Killer African/Brazilian Bees, he sends out a bunch of guys with flamethrowers to set the bees in fire, but his men just end up setting the city of Houston on fire instead. Who knew?

Dr. Crane finally has his eureka moment when he realizes the bees are attracted to sonic vibrations. He lures the bees out to sea with helicopters that emit these sonic vibrations. Once the bees are out to sea, Crane sets the ocean on fire, destroying the swarm in the process. Now how come fire works for Dr. Crane, but not for General Slater? Doesn’t seem fair to me. Neither is the fact that we never find out which suitor Maureen would have chosen. What can I say? Mother Nature can be cruel.

Things I learned from The Swarm:

African Killer Bees hate America!
African Killer Bees are really Brazilian killer bees.
Sunflower seeds are high in potassium, low in sodium.
American bees are good. They pollinate our crops and stuff.
Ambulances explode whenever they crash into anything.
Rail cars explode after trains get derailed.
Pregnant women fall in love with their doctors.
Bee stings cause one to hallucinate about giant bees.
Setting a city on fire is not a best way to save a city.
Setting a man on fire who’s being attacked by Killer African/Brazillian Bees causing him to jump out of a forty story window is not the best way to save his life.