The Curator of Schlock #290: Lola

13 Friday Sep 2019

Posted by thedrunkenodyssey in Film, The Curator of Schlock

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Charles Bronson, Lola, Richard Donner, Susan George, The Curator of Schlock, Twinky

The Curator of Schlock #290 by Jeff Shuster

Lola

I think you’re growing up too soon, girl.

I don’t like it when box art lies. This goes back to the days of Mom & Pop video rental palaces, when you’d see some movie you’ve never heard of with an intriguing cover only to be disappointed when you popped it in the VCR when you got home. This brings us to tonight’s movie, 1969’s Lola from director Richard Donner (of Superman fame).

Look at this DVD cover.

Lola1

We have Charles Bronson in a coat brandishing a pistol. This brings to mind Paul Kersey, the vigilante from the Death Wish movies, but there’s one big problem. Charles Bronson doesn’t have a mustache, nor does he brandish a gun in this movie. The back of the case claims that the movie was directed by John Sturges, but it was, in fact, directed by Richard Donner. The backs reads, “Charles Bronson, Susan George, and Trevor Howard star in this gritty portrayal of a man struggling to keep his demons at bay.” Nope. Again, I’m not seeing it.

This is a goofy 60s comedy about a thirty-eight year-old man dating a sixteen-year-old girl.

Lola5

Susan George plays Lola (also known as Twinky in some versions), a sixteen-year-old English girl who just happens to be having intimate relations with Scott Wardman (Charles Bronson), a close to middle-aged writer of pornographic fiction who’s living in a London flat. Lola tells Scott that she spilled the beans to her parents, and her father is furious. Scott asks her what the age of consent is in England. She says it’s sixteen, but England can still deport Scott or send him to jail for other reasons. Lola consulted the family lawyer on this. Scott chases Lola out the apartment, but then chases after her. They decide to get married in Scotland, where a man can marry a sixteen-year-old girl. Problem solved!

Lola

What am I watching here? The movie presents this situation as cute and zany. I wasn’t alive in ’69. I’m not that clear on what the social norms were, but I’m surprised that at no point in this movie do we find an angry mob surrounding Scott and beating him to death. Maybe if John Sturges had directed this movie.

Lola2

Lola’s father says their marriage won’t work out. Lola’s mother seems more sympathetic and wishes them the best. I can’t help, but notice how attractive Lola’s mother is. Then I realize she is none other than Honor Blackman (Pussy Galore from Goldfinger). There’s a theme song for Lola that’s sung by Jim Dale, the narrator of the Harry Potter books, that I mistook for a lost Dave Clark Five track.

Lola 2

Scott and Lola move to New York City where Scott begins a career as a failed novelist. Scott is required to enroll Lola in high school, as it is the law.

I keep imagining there’s an alternative version of this movie where Lola falls in love with the captain of the football team and asks Scott to drive them to prom.

Anyway, Lola leaves Scott a Dear John letter after they get into a fight over her cat.

The end.

What does it all mean? This movie is messing with my head.

Photo by Leslie Salas.

Jeff 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 thedrunkenodyssey in Film, The Curator of Schlock, Uncategorized

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Death Wish, Original, Paul Kersey, Remake, The Curator of Schlock

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.

Kersey3

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.

Kersey4

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.

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 #195: Life

08 Friday Sep 2017

Posted by thedrunkenodyssey in Horror, The Curator of Schlock

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Ariyon Bakare, Daniel Espinosa, Hiroyuki Sanada, Jake Gyllenhaal, Jeff Shuster, Life, Mars, NASA, Olga Dihovichnaya, Rebecca Ferguson, Ryan Reynolds, The Curator of Schlock

The Curator of Schlock #195 by Jeff Shuster

Life

More like death, lots and lots of death.

Welcome to week two of the Museum of Schlock’s Relativity Series, a range of exhibits that dare to ask what’s really out there. Each year Hollywood gives us some inspirational movie about NASA. Whether it’s Gravity, Interstellar, The Martian or The Arrival, these movies teach us about the triumph of the human spirit in the perils of space. 2017 has given us Life from director Daniel Espinosa, a film about a group of scientists discovering the first definitive proof of life outside of planet Earth.

Life1

The title of this movie gives me hope. What’s more hopeful than life itself?

So these scientists are stationed on the International Space Station. You have two Brits, two Americans, one Japanese, and one Russian. I guess that’s international enough. Ugh. I hate movies with too many characters!

Life2

We’ve got six scientists here. Let’s see. Rebecca Ferguson plays Dr. Miranda North, an officer with the CDC.

Life5

Ryan Reynolds plays Rory Adams, an engineer of some kind. Hiroyuki Sanada plays Sho Murakami, another engineer. Olga Dihovichnaya plays Ekaterina Golovkina, the Mission Commander. There. I think that’s it. Crap. I’ve got two more characters. Jake Gyllenhaal plays Dr. David Johnson, a medical doctor who used to serve in the American military. Finally, you have Ariyon Bakare playing Dr. Hugh Derry, a genius exobiologist who is paralyzed from the waist down, but enjoys free movement in zero gravity.

Life4

The space station recovers a probe NASA sent out to Mars. It contains dirt. Martian dirt! Dr. Derry is especially excited when he discovers a dormant cell in one of the samples. Dr. Derry manages to wake up the cell after some poking and prodding. A media circus ensues. A little schoolgirl wins a contest where she gets to name the organism. She names it Calvin after her elementary school, no doubt named for Calvin Coolidge, our 30th President. Calvin keeps growing in size and forms tentacles. For some reason, this doesn’t alarm anyone. A lab fire causes Calvin to go dormant again much the dismay of Dr. Derry.

Life3

He starts poking at it with a dental scraper. Suddenly, Calvin springs to life wrapping its tentacles around Dr. Derry’s rubber gloved hand. It starts crushing Dr. Derry’s hand until every bone is broken. Only then can Dr. Derry slide it through. He passes out shortly after. Calvin then uses the scraper to puncture the glove, slipping out into the lab to devour a captive gerbil. Okay. Screw Mars!

Life 6

Things go from bad to worse. Rory rushes in to rescue Dr. Derry. He pushes Dr. Derry out, but Calvin latches onto his leg. Rory uses some kind of blowtorch on the creature, but it evades and evades until he runs out of fuel. Sealed inside with nowhere to flee, Rory is defenseless as Calvin slips down his throat and begins to devour his insides. Rory slowly coughs up globules of blood before expiring. Calvin escapes through the sprinkler system. This crew is screwed. Yes, I know I used screw twice in this review. It’s that kind of movie.

Daybreak_at_Gale_Crater_PIA14293

NASA, just leave Mars alone. Please!

Photo by Leslie Salas.

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

The Curator of Schlock #118: Rasputin, The Mad Monk

08 Friday Jan 2016

Posted by thedrunkenodyssey in Film, The Curator of Schlock

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Christopher Lee, Hammer, Rasputin, The Curator of Schlock, The Mad Monk

The Curator of Schlock #118 by Jeff Shuster

Rasputin, the Mad Monk

Women want him and men want to kill him.

I’m a bit of a DVD collector. Others might say hoarder, but so what if I end end up being crushed under mounds of plastic discs one day. I can think of worse ways to die. I’m no Coolduder, but I do have a large library. Unfortunately, as with any collection, you end up having gaps. For me it’s Hammer movies, those wonderful British gems of the 50s, 60s, and 70s. They’re probably most well known for their horror collection, those glorious Technicolor recreations of classic monsters such as Frankenstein, Dracula, and the Mummy.

The trouble with Hammer Horror movies is that they were distributed over here in the States by various movie studios such as Universal Studios, Columbia Pictures, and Warner Bros. This means if you want to get all of the Dracula movies or all of the Frankensteins, you have to rely on editions of varying quality from different studios. You just can’t get a box set like you can with James Bond movies. With the advent of Blu-Ray, I had hoped Hammer movies would be given a second chance on home video and we did get some excellent releases like Twins of Evil and Dracula: Prince of Darkness, but even Blu-Ray releases have been haphazard here in North America while Great Britain gets the full catalogue of Hammer titles.

Little did I know that Anchor Bay had released a full bevy of fancy Hammer Horror DVDs back in the late 90s and early 2000s. How did I miss these? Was I not paying attention? Titles such as Plague of the Zombies, The Mummy’s Shroud, and The Devil Rides Out were all given the special edition treatment. I was asleep at the wheel, which is surprising since I bought so many Anchor Bay DVDs back in the day like Nightmare City and Phenomena. A fellow curator loaned me his Anchor Bay edition of Hammer’s Rasputin: The Mad Monk, which brings us to tonight’s review.

Rasputin: The Mad Monk was directed by Don Sharp and starred Christopher Lee in the title role. The movie starts out with some Russian tavern owner who is worried his wife is going to die because she has a fever or something.

Rasputin shows up at the tavern wanting to guzzle down some wine so he drains the fever out of the guy’s wife, taking it into is hands so he can convince the tavern owner to throw a wild party. Yeah, Rasputin has magic powers or mutant powers or demonic powers-whatever! He gets drunk, tries to have his way with the tavern owner’s daughter, and slices off a man’s hand with a garden hoe.

I started out thinking Rasputin would be an anti-hero like Paul Kersey or John Kramer. You know, he saves lives, but is a womanizer and a glutton. The Catholic Church doesn’t approve of Rasputin, what with all the debauchery and chopping off of hands so he high tails it off to St. Petersberg. He figures he’ll use his mind controlling powers to influence the royal family.

He seduces one of the Tsarina’s ladies-in-waiting, but commands her to commit suicide once he tires of her. When her boyfriend seeks revenge, Rasputin knocks acid in his face. You know, Rasputin is kind of a mean guy. No wonder everyone wants to kill him.

I’d tell you to check out the movie, but it’s no longer available on DVD. Sucks to be you!

Five Suggestions for the Budding Hammer Collector

Hammer Film Collection – 5 Movie Pack: The Two Faces of Dr. Jekyll, Scream of Fear, The Gorgon, Stop Me Before I Kill, The Curse of the Mummy’s Tomb You can get this one for cheap. They’re all good, but The Gorgon is the highlight. This is a Sony release of the Columbia released Hammer films. The transfers are excellent.
The Hammer Horror Series (Brides of Dracula / Curse of the Werewolf / Phantom of the Opera / Paranoiac / Kiss of the Vampire / Nightmare / Night Creatures / Evil of Frankenstein) This is a collection of the Universal Studios released Hammer films. Be sure to buy the edition that was released in 2014 as those discs are single-sided. Double-sided DVDs are the pits.
Horror Classics, Volume One Collection Four Iconic Horror Classics from Hammer Films (THE MUMMY / FRANKENSTEIN MUST BE DESTROYED / DRACULA HAS RISEN FROM THE GRAVE / TASTE THE BLOOD OF DRACULA) This recently released Blu-Ray set comes from Warner Bros. Here’s hoping for a volume 2.
Any Hammer release from Synapse. These come in Blu-Ray/DVD combo packs. These come from Hammers 70s period and feature movies such as The Vampire Circus and Hands of the Ripper.
The Vampire Lovers from Scream Factory. Sadly, the only Hammer release from Scream Factory, but you can pick this Blu-Ray up for cheap. Feature length audio commentary with Ingrid Pitt. What more can you ask for?

_______

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 #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 #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.

The Curator of Schlock #68: A Bionic Christmas Carol

12 Friday Dec 2014

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A Bionic Christmas Carol, Jeff Shuster, Lee Majors, Mustaches, Ray Walston, The Bionic Man, The Curator of Schlock

The Curator of Schlock #68 by Jeffrey Shuster

A Bionic Christmas Carol

Steve Austin vs Ray Walston

I’ve got a problem with mustaches. I admit it. I don’t like it when they curl up into the nostril, fusing with the nose hair like Jauquin Phoenix’s in Her, but I also don’t like the kind that Lee Majors had on The Six Million Dollar Man.

It’s too thin and it hangs too low on his upper lip. These men need to take their cues from Tom Selleck and Burt Reynolds.

Mustaches aside, it is this Curator of Schlock’s expert opinion that the tenth episode of the fourth season of The Six Million Dollar Man entitled A Bionic Christmas Carol stands as one of the greatest adaptations of the classic Dickens’ tale.

Now I know some of you movie snobs out there are decrying the very idea of including an episode of a TV series on this blog, but every episode of The Six Million Dollar Man was like watching a major motion picture! The guy fought Sasquatch! Sadly, you’ll get no such fights in A Bionic Christmas Carol. Our episode begins with Colonel Steve Austin (Lee Majors) meeting up with Oscar Goldman (Richard Anderson) for their annual day before Christmas lunch. Wow! I mean day before Christmas lunch sounds delightful! I wonder why Steve Austin didn’t just call it Christmas Eve lunch, but who am I to question the Six Million Dollar Man?

Anyway, their lunch is cancelled because some curmudgeonly old miser named Horton Budge (Ray Walston), president of the Budge Corporation, is keeping the plant open on Christmas Eve. Boooooooh! Now, some of you may know Ray Walston from TVs My Favorite Martian or Picket Fences, but I’ll always remember him as Mr. Hand from the movie Fast Times at Ridgemont High. I can’t believe he ate Spicoli’s pizza in front of the entire class. What a jerk! All the kids are on dope? Go to bed, old man!

Anyway, Mr. Budge hates Christmas, and hates his nephew, Bob Crandall. It seems that Bob embezzled some money from Budge, but it was to save his Mrs. Crandall’s life and pay for her expensive medical treatments. Instead of reporting his nephew to the police, Mr. Budge made Bob into his personal chauffeur, having Bob run errands whenever he wished. This means no Christmas dinner with the family for Bob and no Christmas bonus to spend on gifts for his kids. Sadly, there is no scene of Steve Austin reaching into Mr. Budge’s stomach and pulling out his spine with his bionic arm. You could only get away with so much on network TV in the 1970s.

Steve Austin was sent to Mr. Budge to inspect the equipment Mr. budge was developing for a future NASA Mars mission. (Hahahahahahahaha!) The test astronaut almost catches fire due to the fact that Mr. Budge only pays for the bare minimum of safety requirements. You’d think that the bare minimum would be enough. What else happens in the episode? Steve Austin bionically leaps up and tears off the top off of a Sequoia so the Crandall kids can have a Christmas tree. He also dresses up as Santa Claus in order to spook Mr. Budge into accepting the spirit of Christmas. What more do you want from 70s TV?

Five Things I Learned from A Bionic Christmas Carol

Leisure suits are still better than Parisian Night Suits.
The Bionic Man loves Christmas, unlike Batman who hates Christmas!
Ray Walston was born at 60-years-old.
Sunny California doesn’t exactly scream Christmas.
Kids were hard to love in the 70s.

_______

Photo by Leslie Salas.

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

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 #57: Lupin the 3rd (Farewell to Nostradamus)

19 Friday Sep 2014

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

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Farewell to Nostradamus, Gold of Babylon, Lupin the 3rd, The Curator of Schlock

The Curator of Schlock #57 by Jeff Shuster

Lupin the 3^rd: Farewell to Nostradamus

(That’s not the Japanese title!)

The third theatrical Lupin the 3^rd animated feature is Lupin the 3^rd The Legend of the Gold of Babylon. I used to have it on VHS back the day and remember it to be quite excruciating to watch. Unfortunately, I got rid of my VHS collection ages ago and The Legend of the Gold of Babylon is not currently on DVD. Rest assured, it will be presented in this museum if made available again. It’s just as well. That’s a convoluted title if I ever heard one: The Legend of the Gold of Babylon. You lose interest by the time you get to Babylon.

So if you remember my blogs from the past two weeks, you’ll know that I had quite a time procuring Lupin the 3^rd The Mystery of Mamo and Lupin the 3^rd The Castle of Cagliostro, but those were nothing compared to the monumental task of getting the fourth Lupin the 3^rd feature, Farewell to Nostradamus. In the early days of the Internet, way before illegal streaming and illegal downloading, there were people online who would record and subtitle Japanese animation straight from Japan, and distribute them to you for the cost of a blank VHS tape and postage. So they weren’t making a profit from this and it was totally legal. Or maybe it wasn’t. Yeah, at the time I didn’t think it was legal so I refrained from sending a modest some for Lupin the 3^rd Die, Nostradamus! Die! (Farewell to Nostradamus). Still, for the purposes of this review, let’s say that I did send out for a copy back in 1997 and received it ten months later.

My first reaction was that this was the greatest Lupin movie ever! You see there’s this evil Nostradamus sect doing terrible things throughout the world. They claim to have the lost prophesies of Nostradamus and release a new one to the world right before the predicted disaster strikes. For instance, they’ll say a huge whale in the Atlantic Ocean will burn like the sun. They’ll then proceed to secretly blow up a nuclear submarine. Wow! That’s pretty darn evil. Still, it gets new members flocking to the sect everyday.

So you’d think the cult would be unstoppable, but it turns out there’s an actual book of real lost Nostradamus prophecies. And it’s in a secret vault of one of the richest men in the United States of America. And that man is also running for President of the United States. What’s an evil cult to do? Kidnap the candidate’s 8-year-old daughter and use her as leverage to get into that vault and steal the lost prophesies. Yes, these guys are really evil.

Lupin and the gang also want the lost prophecies. A mysterious buyer is offering $50,000,000 for them. Inspector Zenigata is back, this time he has a Lupin-sniffing robot at his disposal. There’s a giant building in Atlanta, GA filled with sports stadiums and ski resorts with actual snow, and if you don’t think this building is going to become a deathtrap later in the film, you don’t know Lupin the 3^rd movies.

Incidentally, the actual Japanese title of this movie translates to something close to Lupin the 3^rd F@#$ You, Nostradamus! That is the greatest movie title of all time.

Five Things I Learned from Lupin the 3^rd Farewell to Nostradamus

Don’t join Nostradamus sects that blow up nuclear submarines.
A glass eye makes a lovely keepsake.
Rich girls don’t like to scoop water out of sinking boats.
Beware of hypnotized Brazilian soccer players.
Virtual Reality can be quite painful.

____________

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

The Curator of Schlock #55: Lupin the 3rd

05 Friday Sep 2014

Posted by thedrunkenodyssey in Anime, The Curator of Schlock

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Lupin III: The Mystery of Mamo, The Curator of Schlock

The Curator of Schlock #55 by Jeff Shuster

Lupin the 3^rd: The Mystery of Mamo

Okay, you Japanese animation fans, never let it be said that The Curator of Schlock doesn’t provide his readers with what they want. First I want to point out that you younglings probably can’t appreciate just how good you have it when it comes to the sheer accessibility of Japanese animation. There were no video-streaming services back in the mid-1990s. If you were lucky, the Sci-Fi Channel would show a feature every once in awhile, but most of the time you would have to fork over twenty bucks at your local mall video store, the only place that carried these exotic cartoons from the east.

The covers would typically be branded with a “Not for Kids” label complete with a frowny faced child. I always found that sicker disturbing like I wasn’t supposed to purchasing said VHS tape unless I could guarantee it wouldn’t fall into the hands of a young tyke who didn’t know any better. But that was the allure of Japanese animation, the tug of forbidden cinema. When someone tells you that you’re not allowed to watch something, you may obey at first, but that curiosity festers inside until you can’t stand it anymore. And that’s the day you buy the Japanese cartoon with the frowny face sticker attached.

I didn’t really know what I was getting into when I bought Lupin the 3^rd The Mystery of Mamo, the 1978 feature from director Sōji Yoshikawa. I was looking for an animated James Bond movie and, in a way, Lupin the 3^rd fit that bill.

Lupin is definitely an international man of mystery who tangles with super villians, but the comparisons end there. Lupin is no spy, but a master thief, always after that one big score. He’s joined by Daisuke Jigan, and ex Chicago mobster, and Goemon Ishikawa, a wandering samurai. Lupin has a rival in the form of Fujiko Mine, a fellow master thief and femme fatal. Always in hot pursuit of Lupin the 3^rdis Inspector Koichi Zenigata of Interpol. These five characters have been the subjects of several comics, television series, and, of course, feature films.

The first of the animated Lupin features was The Mystery of Mamo. What is it about? The movie starts off with Inspector Zenigata exploring Dracula’s castle only to find a dead Lupin the 3^rd in coffin (which he promptly drives a stake into.) The movie ends with a giant brain floating into the sun.

In between, there’s a Duel style car chase, an Adolf Hitler clone, a henchman’s head that gets sliced into three pieces, Fujiko in the buff, Lupin in the buff, Henry Kissinger, and tons of atomic bombs. It is not a movie for the easily offended, but it is a movie for those with a good sense of humor. It comes from an era when movies could still shock and surprise, an era where your curiosity could be rewarded.

Want to know more about Lupin the 3^rd? Check in next week when I review a movie that changed the course of film animation forever. By the way, a recent DVD release of Lupin the 3^rd The Mystery of Mamo from Eastern Star contains no less than four English dubs. Looks like I’ll be purchasing this movie yet again.