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.

The Curator of Schlock #49: Superman IV

25 Friday Jul 2014

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The Curator of Schlock #49 by Jeff Shuster

Superman IV: The Quest for Peace

(It’s not that bad)

Now we’ll wrap up Patriot’s Month with Superman IV: The Quest for Peace. When I think of the red, white, and blue, I think of Superman. Granted he dresses in red, yellow, and blue, but he also supports Truth, Justice, and the American Way! Unfortunately, Rocky Balboa’s “We ain’t so different!” speech at the end of Rocky IV must softened many hearts because Superman IV is all about ending the nuclear arms race. Psh. A little nuclear winter never hurt anybody.

1987’s Superman IV: The Quest for Peace starts off with Russian cosmonauts not realizing the gravity of their situation when a piece of space junk knocks poor Yuri to his doom. Never fear. Superman (Chistopher Reeve) saves poor Yuri delivering him safely back to the space craft.

You know, I remember back in the 80s how terrified we all were that the Soviet Union would the first to land someone on Mars. We were afraid that the red planet would really become the Red Planet. Thank goodness for the end of the Cold War. Now no one has to ever land on Mars!

What else? The Daily Planet is being taken over by David Warfield (Sam Wanamaker), a newspaper tycoon who specializes in tabloid journalism much to the chagrin of Clark Kent (Christopher Reeve), Lois Lane (Margot Kidder), Jimmy Olsen (Marc McClure), and Perry White (Jackie Cooper). Lacy Warfield (Mariel Hemingway, who happens to be Ernest’s granddaughter and portrayed Dorothy Stratton in Star 80) is the new boss’s daughter and she has a thing for mild-mannered Clark Kent. So Lois Lane is in love with Superman and Lacy Warfield is in love with Clark Kent.

This is interesting situation that allows Superman and Clark Kent to go on a double date with these two ladies and hilarity ensues. Superman uses his heat vision to roast a duck for Lois so we can add duck-roasting to his list of super powers. One thing I never liked about these movies was how they kept inventing super powers for Superman. Like how he can all of the sudden speak in any language. I remember on Smallville he could barely speak a full sentence of Spanish. Yes, I watched Smallville. All ten seasons and it was excellent! I got to see what would happen if Clark Kent took out a bad guy with a bowling ball on that show, and it exceeded my expectations.

Back to Superman IV: The Quest for Peace. Some schoolboy named Jeremy wants Superman to get rid of all the world’s nuclear weapons. I would have thought this was a pretty good idea back in the day provided the United States of America was excluded from this arrangement. Superman is mum on the matter until the new Daily Planet shames him into making a public statement. The floating heads in The Fortress of Solitude tell him to say no and find a new planet to rule, but Superman can’t let little Jeremy down so he tell the United Nations he’ll throw all of the nuclear weapons into the sun. And Superman does just that and everything is jim-dandy. The end.

Oh wait. I forgot to mention that Lex Luthor (Gene Hackman) breaks out of prison. He and his nephew, Lenny (Jon Cryer) decide to create a super villain out of Superman’s DNA mixed with a bit of nuclear radiation. He’s called Nuclear Man and he likes to “hurt people.” How can Superman defeat such a monster? You’ll have to watch the movie to find out.

You know speaking of Jon Cryer, was anyone else upset over the ending Pretty in Pink? I mean, yeah, I’ll concede that Blane wasn’t like the other rich kids at school and was worthy of Andie’s affection, but where did that leave Duckie? I bet the guy never found true love again. It’s not fair!

Five Things I Learned from Superman IV: The Quest for Peace

Clark Kent can’t hit a curve ball.
Urban sprawl is ruining America’s farms
Lois Lane can’t speak French very well.
The dark side of the moon isn’t so dark.
Richard Pryor is a more credible villain than Nuclear Man.

_______

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

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

16 Friday May 2014

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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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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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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.

___________

Photo by Leslie Salas.

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

The Curator of Schlock #33: Battle Beyond the Stars

28 Friday Mar 2014

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The Curator of Schlock #33 by Jeffrey Shuster

Battle Beyond the Stars: Better Never than Late

John Saxon returns to the Museum of Schlock in Battle Beyond the Stars, the story of how the evil Sador of the Malmori (John Saxon) and his army of deformed mutant freaks tried to conquer Akir, a pathetic farming planet. Things were going okay for him in the beginning. Sador’s giant starship The Hammerhead makes short work of space weather reporters before descending to the planet. The crowd of peasant losers looks on as a giant projection of Sador’s disembodied head declares that he’s going to conquer them with his stellar converter. That would be enough for me to throw my hands up, let me tell you. John Saxon is scary enough, but a giant John Saxon head is downright terrifying.

Anyway, all hope is not lost. There is a young boy hero, unsure of himself, but pure of heart, who goes on a quest to find a bunch of mercenaries to help fight against the invaders. His name is Shad and he’s played by Richard Thomas, the same actor who played John-Boy on The Waltons. I like the name John-Boy better than Shad so we’ll call him John-Boy for the rest of the review. So John-Boy goes off in search of adventure in a spaceship that resembles a part of the female anatomy. The ship’s onboard computer is named Nell and she’s a bit of a nagging mom type. John-Boy tries to recruit the help of Dr. Hephaestus who makes robots that look just like people. Dr. Hephaestus wants John-Boy to mate with his beautiful young daughter Nanelia so he can get some grandkids. John-Boy has no interest in mating and goes his way.

At some point in the movie John-Boy runs into a space cowboy names Cowboy (George Peppard) and gets him to join the fight.

Sador blows up a planet of Dinosaur men. Good riddance I say. I hate Dinosaur men!

There’s a Valkyrie woman named Saint Exmin ( Sybil Danning) from a race known as the Valkyrie and she wants to recharge John-Boy’s capacitators if you know what I mean.

There’s a race of clone alien guys who experience whatever the other is experiencing. Like if one eats a hot dog the others taste it. For their sake, I hope it was Nathan’s.

Let’s see. Who else joins up? I seem to recall Robert Vaughn showing up at some point. I think he plays an ex-assassin or something. I remember when Robert Vaughn guest starred on Kung Fu: The Legend Continues. I think he played an ex-assassin in that episode too. Let’s see. Who else? There’s a last surviving dinosaur man that joins the fight. Sador kills him, too! Yeah. In fact, Sador and his goons kill everyone except for John-Boy. Will John-Boy manage to trick Sador of the Malmori to hook a tractor beam onto the female anatomy spaceship, which John-boy was smart enough to start the self-destruct sequence of? Maybe. And Sador and his ship will blow up. And everyone will be happy because John Saxon got what he deserved.

Ten Things I Learned from Battle Beyond the Stars

You’re better off having good sets than good models.
I need to start making references to Kung Fu The Legend Continues in every review going forward.
John Saxon really can’t laugh maniacally.
Dinosaur Men suck and they need to die!
When the Operating Systems become sentient like the ones in Her, I want mine to act just like Nell.
You can watch Battle Beyond the Stars and discover something new about it every time.
I lied about number 6.
I lied about number 5 too.
Assassins make the most dynamic characters. I mean, they kill people for a living. That’s hardcore!
Some planets aren’t worth saving.

___________

Photo by Leslie Salas.

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

The Curator of Schlock #32: Warwick Davis is The Leprechaun

21 Friday Mar 2014

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The Curator of Schlock #32 by Jeffrey Shuster

Warwick Davis is The Leprechaun

Here’s your stupid Leprechaun review! I know St. Patty’s day was on Monday, so this review is late. I don’t care. Do you know why? Leprechaun ain’t that good. The movie starts out with an Irishman by the name of Daniel O’Grady who’s ecstatic over the fact that he kidnapped a leprechaun on his last trip to Ireland and managed to get his hands a pot of gold. Unfortunately said Leprechaun (Warwick Davis) follows O’Grady back to the states. He knocks O’Grady’s wife down the cellar stairs, killing her instantly. O’Grady manages to pack the leprechaun up in a crate, sealing it with a four leaf clover (the only thing Leprechauns are vulnerable to). But the leprechaun has the last laugh by making poor O’Grady have a stroke.

The movie should have ended there, but audiences and theater chains tend to frown on ten minute features, so they tack a Leprechaun sequel onto the ten minute Leprechaun movie. The Leprechaun sequel stars a pre-Friends Jennifer Aniston as Tory, a hip 90s-era teenager who hates eating meat and misses Los Angeles.

She can’t stand the fact that her dad decided to rent the O’Grady farmhouse for the summer. Tory doesn’t like the idea of spending the summer in South Dakota, but starts to warm to the place when she meets Nathan, a hunky house painter who is painting their rented house. Nathan has a kid brother named Alex working for him along with the town simpleton Ozzie Jones.

While fumbling around in the basement, Ozzie removes the four leaf clover and sets the leprechaun loose upon the world. The Leprechaun is hunting for his lost gold and unleashes a nightmare of terror on the community. Well, he kills a couple of guys at any rate. He kills the local rare coin merchant with a pogo stick, pounding up on him again and again until the dude is a bloody pulp. He also manages to take out an on duty police officer. I guess they didn’t cover leprechauns at the police academy. Will the leprechaun’s reign of terror end? Will Nathan’s kid brother attach a four leaf clover to some bubble gum and it at The Leprechaun with his slingshot? Who cares? The 90s sucked for horror movies and Leprechaun is no exception. Any movie that features a monster that likes to shine shoes in his spare time isn’t inspired. It’s just plain stupid.

Still better than Friends, though.

Ten Things I Learned from Leprechaun

Leprechauns will threaten you, claiming they’ll tear your ear off and make a boot out of it.
Warwick Davis is good in anything.
Leprechauns like to kiss their gold.
Chasing rainbows can make you a wealthy man.
Leprechauns have sharp teeth and they will bite you.
You can’t kill a Leprechaun with bullets. They’re magical creatures.
Leprechauns speak with Irish accents. Who knew?
Movie meatloaf isn’t like real life meatloaf.
Leprechauns aren’t big into sharing.
The Irish ain’t so lucky.

___________

Photo by Leslie Salas.

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

The Curator of Schlock #30: Slumming Through Oscar Nominees

07 Friday Mar 2014

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The Curator of Schlock #30 by Jeffrey Shuster

Slumming Through Oscar Nominees

A funny thing happened in the middle of my typing up my review for Battle Beyond the Stars last week. My MacBook Pro Air laptop thingamagig died on me. So Space Opera month got officially ruined and my MacBook is still in limbo until I get word from the Mac store. Still, you guys are in for a treat. Last Saturday, I decided to partake in the Downtown Disney AMC Oscar Nominee marathon with Dusty Mondy, bass player and yodler for Alias Punch and co-creator of the hot sauce known as Goofy Boots. What can I say? He’s a renaissance man. They only showed 5 of the 9 nominees that Saturday, but my eyes were about ready to fall out of my head by the time we got to the fifth movie. Normally, I wouldn’t dare to critique such mainstream cinema since I’m the Curator of Schlock and schlock. I’m in a bad mood this week.

Nebraska

Bruce Dern plays a messed up old guy who thinks he won a million dollars through some magazine contest and wants to go to Nebraska to collect it. I remember Bruce Dern from that movie about the plants in the space station. I think director Alexander Payne was trying to go for gritty realistic look because I could see every one of Bruce Dern’s nose hairs and how they were connected to his beard. Stacy Keach shows up at some point and he plays a real creep, which is always nice to see. I think Dusty Mondy mentioned how he liked that movie was shot in black and white. Yeah, you don’t that too often these days. Roger Ebert once remarked how there’s a timeless quality to black and white movies and I expect I’ll be watching Nebraska again in ten years remarking on how timeless it is.

Captain Phillips

Tom Hanks plays Captain Phillips in Captain Phillips, a movie about a captain whose ship gets overrun by Somali pirates. Four Somali pirates. Four emaciated Somali pirates. But they do have machine guns. One of them walks right up to Captain Phillips and says, “I’m the Captain!” I got so angry when I heard that. I wanted to yell at the screen, “No, you’re not!” The pirates stumble around the ship. One of them steps barefoot onto shattered glass and another gets kidnapped by members of the crew. Captain Phillips gives them $30,000 if they’ll just the ship alone and go on their merry way. They take the $30,000 and kidnap Captain Phillips before they leave. Will Captain Phillips survive? It was on the news. You should know the end to this story. Dusty Mondy didn’t like the shaky cam employed in the shooting of this picture. True, half of the time you couldn’t really see what was going on, but it made me kind of seasick so if that was the goal of director Paul “Which-one-was-The Bourne-Ultimatum?” Greengrass, mission accomplished!

Her

I don’t like Joaquin Phoenix’s mustache in Her. Maybe that’s the point. It just sort of curls up into his nostrils. This might play out better on the small screen, but his mustache made me uncomfortable every time I had to gaze up at it. Dusty Mondy likes to sit up close when he goes to the movies, but facial hair should be enjoyed at distance. Anyway, Her is about a near future society that’s about as awful as you can imagine. The people in the future dress in high-wasted cashmere pants, drink juiced drinks, play stupid motion-controlled video games, and talk incessantly into earpieces while ignoring the world around them. And before you make a snarky comment about that being our world, be rest assured that you have no idea. If I live to see the future as presented in Her, I will become a super villain.

American Hustle

This is the movie that would never end and I mean that in the worst possible way. I don’t know if this movie would have been improved if it had been cut down from 138 minutes. Too many characters and a plot about the Abscam sting operation that seems to go nowhere for the majority of the picture. Which is a shame because we have an all-star cast here: Christian Bale, Bradley Cooper, Amy Adams, Jeremy Renner, Jennifer Lawrence, Louis C. K., Jack Huston, Michael Peña, Shea Wigham, and Robert De Niro. I have no idea how this movie got nominated. Maybe half the Academy voters starred in it? Dusty Mondy remarked that he’d seen this movie before, that it reminded him of Boogie Nights. I saw Boogie Nights in the theater. It was a lot better than American Hustle.

Gravity

Sandra Bullock and George Clooney star in Gravity from director Alfonso Cuarón. They play a couple of astronauts who are busy repairing a satellite when all hell breaks loose. It seems that the Russians decided to blow up one of their satellites because they hate the world and knew such actions would cause half of North America to lose their Facebook access. Bullock and Clooney dodge debris and run into dead astronauts with holes in their faces. We learn that Sandra Bullock is a medical doctor whose daughter died because she bumped her head while playing on the school playground. I guess that’s supposed to help with her character arc or something. Dusty Mondy hated this picture with a passion, but I say any movie that can show a 3D Marvin the Martian figurine floating in space can’t be all that bad. And I’m heartened that a movie that bears all the hallmarks of schlock can still get a Best Picture nomination.

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Jeffrey Shuster (episode 47) 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!

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Photo by Leslie Salas.

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

The Curator of Schlock #28: Lensman

14 Friday Feb 2014

Posted by thedrunkenodyssey in Film, The Curator of Schlock

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The Curator of Schlock #28 by Jeffrey Shuster

Lensman,

Long Lost Anime.

We continue Space Opera month with Lensman, the 1984 Japanese animated adaptation of the classic science fiction novel Galactic Patrol by E. E. “Doc” Smith. Let’s get this out of the way right now. I know the movie takes liberties with the source material. I’ve read the source material myself and know that Kimball Kinnison isn’t a farmboy, that Worzel didn’t need a lens to be a Lensman, that Lensmen aren’t chosen out of fate, etc. We’re going to judge this movie based on its own merits.

The movie starts out with a bunch of alien no-good-nicks known as The Boskone wreaking havoc on the Galactic Patrol, the protectors of civilization in the known universe. Among these protectors are the Lensmen, super police officers with glass discs attached to their hands. It’s the lenses that give these officers psychic powers to use over their enemies. They’re also handy for storing information and one of these Lensmen actually managed to discover the location of the “Devil Planet,” the Boskone’s secret base.

Unfortunately, before this Lensman is able to get this information back to the Galactic Patrol, his spaceship is shot down over a farm planet. With his last dying breath, he transfers his lens over to a young man by the name of Kimball Kinnison. It’s now the task of our young, inexperienced hero to get that information back to the Galactic Patrol. He’ll be joined by companions to help him on his quest: Buskirk, a bear hugging space smuggler who serves as the comic relief, Worzel, a winged, lizard Lensman, Clarissa MacDougal, Galactic Patrol nurse and potential love interest for Kim, and some Mohawk donning intergalactic DJ whose name escapes me.

Okay. So far Lensman coming as a Star Wars rip-off, but at least it’s a decent Star Wars rip-off. My issues with Starcrash last week were the terrible special effects, but unlike that disaster, Lensman offers plenty of eye candy. It’s a wonderful example of mid 80s anime production. Every spaceship and every alien planet is crafted with painstaking attention to detail. Plus, there’s an added bonus of early computer animation mixed in with the traditional cel animation. There’s a scene towards the end where Kimball Kinnison is fighting computer-animated objects in a maze in what looks to be a tribute to Disney’s Tron.

Unfortunately, Lensman was never given a DVD release, due most likely to the fact that the Smith estate hates the movie. This is understandable considering how much it deviated from the original, but it’s still a piece of animation that should be preserved. And until that Ron Howard’s Lensman project gets off the ground, this is the only Lensman we’ve got.

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Photo by Leslie Salas

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