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

01 Friday Aug 2014

Posted by thedrunkenodyssey in The Curator of Schlock

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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.

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

The Curator of Schlock #29: Star Trek: The Motion Picture

21 Friday Feb 2014

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

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

The Curator of Schlock #29 by Jeffrey Shuster

Star Trek: The Motion Picture

(Back when motion pictures had motion pictures in the title!)

This is a bad film. I know Star Trek: The Motion Picture has its defenders and to them I would ask, “What is wrong with you?” Yes, the model work is impressive and the Jerry Goldsmith score is sublime. But you have to start with a good story and someone forgot about that when this turkey was given the green light. They were probably so desperate to capitalize on the success of Star Wars that they rushed this through.

I myself had never seen this movie until I had already watched Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan, Star Trek III: The Search for Spock, and Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home. Wrath of Khan was a regular Showtime staple when I was a child, and I was fortunate enough to see the other two in the theater. Wrath of Khan is still one of my favorite movies and I’d be tempted to argue it’s the greatest science fiction movie of all time. But I always knew there was a 1 before the 2. Everyone told me 1 sucked, but I didn’t believe them until I caught it on broadcast television. And wow, were they right. And the experience was made even more painful by the commercials. But we have Netflix now. Commercial free. So let’s boogie!

The movie begins with three Klingon Battle Cruisers firing photon torpedoes at a pink luminescent space cloud. You know what other movie had Klingons in it? Star Trek III: The Search for Spock. Christopher Lloyd and John Larroquette played them. They flew in a spaceship that had retractable wings and could cloak itself. And that ship fired at the Enterprise, not at some stupid pink cloud. That’s what I like to see. Spaceships shooting at each other!

Anyway, the pink cloud electrocutes the Klingon Battle Cruisers or disintegrates them or something along those lines. Starfleet Command determines that the probe is on a precise heading toward Earth. Do you know what other movie had giant space probe on a heading toward Earth? Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home. And it was cooler than the one in this. Okay. So it looked like a cylinder with a golf ball being projected by a beam of light. It was still cooler than a pink luminescent cloud.

So Admiral Kirk (William Shatner) assumes command of the Enterprise. He gets the crew back together like Mr. Spock (Leonard Nimoy) and Dr. McCoy (DeForest Kelly).

There’s a transporter room accident with some Vulcans that’s quite horrible. There’s a romance between a bald alien woman and the guy that played the preacher dad on 7^th Heaven. The USS Enterprise flies into the probe. The bald alien woman gets disintegrated and recreated as a robot bald alien woman and the 7^th Heaven dad likes her better.

The pink luminescent space cloud is actually the old Voyager space probe from Earth. The probe dictates that if 7^th Heaven dad has cosmic sex with robot bald alien woman that it will leave Earth alone. 7^th Heaven dad heartily agrees and the Earth is saved. Dr. McCoy remarks about how they just delivered a new baby to the universe. The End. Credits roll.

Yeah, the movie sucks.

Ten Things I Learned from Star Trek: The Motion Picture

Shots of the starship Enterprise gliding through space are pretty, but they can’t carry a motion picture.
Pajamas make for terrible uniforms.
Some matte paintings don’t hold up so well.
Shooting photon torpedoes at a pink luminescent cloud is undignified.
Transporters can really mess you up. See The Fly for more details.
Beige is a terrible color for anything on a spaceship.
George Takei is good in anything.
Warp drives are notoriously unrealiable.
James Doohan sports a wicked mustache.
Star Trek The Motion Picture cost 35 million more dollars to make than Star Wars. Yikes!