Concert Film Watch: The T.A.M.I. Show (1964)

Watched: 09/07/2020 

Format: TCM on DVR 

Viewing: First 

Decade: 1960's 

Director:  Steve Binder

A concert film featuring Jan & Dean as hosts, you get a look at 1964 as a watershed year in American music.  The show features performances by:

• Chuck Berry
• Gerry and the Pacemakers
• Smokey Robinson and the Miracles
• Marvin Gaye
• The Blossoms (group featuring Signal Watch patron saint Darlene Love)
• Lesley Gore
• Jan and Dean
• The Beach Boys
• Billy J Kramer and the Dakotas
• The Supremes
• The Barbarians
• James Brown and the Famous Flames
• The Rolling Stones

There's a 10,000 word essay on what was happening in America in 1964 (Civil Rights Act), what Chuck Berry did to music in 1958, what co-option of R&B and  Rock and Roll by white kids and white kids from England meant and what happened to the genres as a result.  

But for the TAMI Show, it's looking at the past, present and future of music on one stage in a tight package.  Not all of the acts will become legendary or household names - I never even heard of Billy J Kramer before this - and not everyone is amazing.  The awards show was the Teenage Awards Music International - or, essentially, Teen-Choice Awards.  Which is also a reminder that these genres were in the process of being turned into music for kids.  Which is an idea people respond to violently, but when you see a room full of teenage girls screaming themselves hoarse at the mere sight of Mick Jagger, it's a reminder that your parents dragged that music into adulthood with them and institutionalized it.*  This was new in the 1950's and 60's, when the very idea of a "teenager" was new in the wake of WWII and post-war prosperity/ marketing.  

But that said - I'm a product of the generation that was screaming its head off at these acts (my mother graduated high school in '64, for example).  All of this was more than a decade in the past by the time I was even born, but it was what was on the radio and in our parents' vinyl collections and played on soundtracks of movies as we were growing up, so it became our music, too.  

Anyway - it's a hell of a movie.  And if you want to see a very young The Supremes and James Brown before he became weighed down with legal issues and drama, or a chance to see The Stones as they seem to be realizing the extent of their power - this is an amazing bit of film.

Fun bonus - Toni Basil and Teri Garr are in this as dancers.  I spotted Basil, but not Garr.  

*And there's a pretty similar model for what happened to comics in the 1980's

TPR-Watch-Party Watch: In the Heat of the Night (1967)

Watched:  09/01/2020
Format:  Amazon Watch Party (Texas Public Radio)
Viewing:  First
Decade:  1960's
Director:  Norman Jewison

What a phenomenal film, and so shockingly, depressingly timely for something 53 years old.

The energy between Poitier and Steiger is famously some of the best on screen.  The entire cast is on fire in this one, which uses the Buddy-Cop formula to highlight people from different worlds and show how they clash.  Of course, this story is that of an African-American, Philadelphia-based homicide detective who happens to stumble into murder in a hick town in Mississippi, who partners with the local Sheriff who, while totally out of his depth, has the intelligence to be *aware* he's out of his depth.

Anyway - this is a terribly famous film, and - I'd argue - well worth a watch. 

I happened to have the delight of watching the film with the Texas Public Radio film fan community via Amazon Watch Party.  Hosted by our own NathanC, the chatter during the movie was lively, Nathan brought the trivia, and after the movie we met up in a GoToMeeting to chat about it.  Good times!  A+  Would do again.

Musical Watch: Sweet Charity (1969)

Watched:  08/23/2020
Format:  TCM
Viewing:  First
Decade:  1960's
Director:  Bob Fosse

I'd never been terribly curious about Sweet Charity (1969), but I watched - and was a huge fan of - Fosse/ Verdon last year (highest recommendations) and felt I owed the movie a look-see, especially after seeing Fosse in Kiss Me Kate.  And, I'm enough of a fan of Cabaret that I own a copy.

I'm not sure 51 years on what the legacy or reputation is of Sweet Charity.  In 2020 it wears its late-60's-ness like a cement block tied with a chain.  There's just a level of misogyny that pervades the whole film - which is essentially about a dime-a-dance-girl/ stripper/ possible sex-worker (depending on your reading) seeking marriage and happiness but who - for reasons the movie finds inessential - has no tools for doing so.  There's just no interest in ever really exploring who Charity is, herself.  And the characters feel oddly two-dimensional throughout.

In the inevitable comparison to Cabaret, Sally Bowles may have exactly the same issues and hang-ups, but we know who she is and get a few lines about how she got there.  Which I don't think we ever get about Charity.

The dance numbers are, of course, Fosse and in them the movie shines.  Absolutely.  Worth the price of admission.  Sammy Davis Jr. guests in a terrific number, and Maclaine is better than I figured as a song and dance girl.

The movie has some interesting editing quirks that now feel deeply dated.

But the ending... doesn't.  It's an unnecessary ellipses that doesn't leave the viewer feeling the ambiguity is the point - it feels like they failed to finish the script or didn't know how to wrap up the story and wanted it to have a sort of bittersweet ending that would feel heady, but it fails to earn it.  Like, literally anything could have happened as the movie wrapped, good or bad, and it would have not just felt like air coming out of a tire.

Have a point, movie.

Anyway - if nothing else, watch the most famous scene from the film, which is - frankly, amazing stuff.*




*and should be assigned viewing for any person about to enter a gentleman's club for the first time

Forgot to Mention It Watch: Barbarella (1968)

Watched:  07/24/2020
Format:  Amazon Watch Party
Viewing:  Third
Decade:  1960's
Director:  Roger Vadim

I've never actually *liked* Barbarella (1968), and watching it a third time did nothing to improve that opinion.  Even back in high school when the hint of boob was a welcome thing, I thought the movie was so clunky (and not in a fun way) I turned it off. 

As a grown-assed watcher, it's a slog.  I am sure a certain kind of 1960's beatnik probably liked it, but I am not one of those beatniks.   For a movie that prides itself on sexiness, it's attempts at sexiness are so awkward, it's deeply unsexy and boring to boot. 

Visually, though? - it's astounding, so I recommend putting it on mute and playing it on your TV during a party. 

PODCAST: "Le Samourai" (1967) and "The Conformist" (1970) - a European Neonoir Watch w/ JAL and RYan

Watched:  Le Samourai 07/28, The Conformist 07/31
Format:  HBOmax/ BluRay
Viewing:  third for both, I believe
Decade:  1960's/ 1970's
Director:  Jean-Pierre Melville  & Bernardo Bertolucci

For more ways to listen


Justin and Ryan head to Europe for some neo-noir! We swing through France for a hitman film and over to Italy for... well, he's not much of a hitman, really. One of these is absolutely noir and the other, we're kind of calling a noir - and we're pretty excited about both of them. Join us as for a double-bill, continental style!

The Signal Watch PodCast · 115: "Le Samourai" (1967) & "The Conformist" (1970) - Noir Watch w/ JAL and Ryan

Music:

Le Samourai Title Theme - François De Roubaix
The Conformist Title Theme - Georges Delerue


Playlist - Noir Watch:

The Signal Watch PodCast · Noir Watch

Kaiju Watch: Son of Godzilla (1967)

Watched:  07/08/2020
Format:  BluRay
Viewing:  First (all the way through)
Decade:  1960's
Director: Jun Fukuda

Between you, me and the wall, I have been kind of dreading getting to these Godzilla films.  I'm not necessarily a fan of Minilla, but I understand his place.  Some of my first exposure to Godzilla was via the 1970's cartoon series which included "Godzooky", a character intended to appeal to the youths who was a doofus time sink taking away minutes from Godzilla fights.

We're only 13 years away from the amazing work of the original Gojira by this point, but as happens when kids glom onto a character, all the edges were knocked off (see: Mickey Mouse or Batman by 1940).  Godzilla is a big goof who people are afraid like maybe you'd fear a giant cow, and the introduction of "Baby Godzilla" in this context is mostly about giving kids an avatar to project what it'd be like to hang out with Godzilla and learn how to use your own atomic breath. 

I've never really been one for this line of thinking - I never wanted to be Robin if I could be Batman.  I suspect I at least kinda liked Godzooky as a kid.  A funny Godzilla was probably pushing the right buttons for me.  But there is nothing cute or particularly funny about Minilla.  In fact, he's kind of grotesque.

he looks like shirtless, toothless, old, fat man who can't find his slippers

It's just no way to run a monster island. 

Our story is that several scientists have come to a remote, supposedly empty island to work on a weather control experiment that will somehow assist with resolving world hunger.  This island is a popular napping spot for Godzilla.  It also contains mantises the size of a human.  The experiment goes kooky and radiates the island and the mantii grow to Godzilla sizes.  Minilla hatches from an egg and in his original form looks like a tadpole mated with a cow patty.  Its revolting and you kinda root for the mantises to make short work of the abomination. 

But Godzilla shows up and saves him. 

There's also a giant spider on the island (who is a dick).  And a fetching island girl who is the sole survivor of an archaeological expedition that went on way too long. 

This is also one the doofiest designs for Big G.  And I don't even know what they were thinking.

what if an alligator and avocado fell in love?

This movie is pretty clearly more or less aimed at the kiddies, and that's fine.  Jamie tells me it was straight to TV, which is wild.  But it does sort of have that budgetary look.  They forego multiple sets for just building pretty good mantises and a great looking spider muppet.  Why Minilla and Godzilla look like flaming garbage, I do not know.

Anyway - this is the era I've been bracing for as its "Godzilla, Friend to the Children" time, and I soon need to watch stuff like All Monsters Attack, which I have never successfully navigated. 

Noir Watch: Underworld USA (1961)

Watched:  06/26/2020
Format:  Noir Alley on DVR
Viewing:  First
Decade:  1960's
Director:  Samuel Fuller

One of the things I enjoy about watching noir and older films is figuring out how great some directors really were.  I still haven't watched enough Samuel Fuller, but I have yet to see a Fuller movie that didn't hit me over the head like a 2x4, and Underworld U.S.A. (1961) is no exception.

Kaiju Watch: Invasion of Astro-Monster (1965)

Watched:  06/17/2020
Format:  Criterion BluRay
Viewing:  4th? - for whatever reason, I've seen this a few times
Decade:  1960's
Director:  Ishiro Honda

This one I've seen a few times and very much remember watching it as a kid on some local UHF channel.  However, I think watching it with Japanese language subtitled to English may have changed a few details.  I swear I thought this whole movie took place on Mars. 

It does not. 

Kaiju Watch: Ghidorah, The Three Headed Monster (1964)

Watched:  06/10/2020
Format:  BluRay
Viewing:  second or third
Decade:  1960's
Director:  Ishirō Honda


This movie is straight up nonsense and is, therefore, ideal.

January in Tokyo sees 82 degrees temperatures and an encephalitis epidemic.  People are all about UFO's.  A Princess is seeking asylum from her small country in Japan because (a) there is an assassination plot afoot before she can be coronated and (b) everyone is wearing Elizabethan collars and it is a fashion nightmare.  The Faeries are touring Japan and appearing on gameshows?

Anyway - we get way, way into the movie before there's even a hint of kaiju.  Instead, there's a plot about the princess jumping out of her plane before it explodes and then appearing in Tokyo possessed by a Venusian and predicting calamity (see: Ghidorah).  A reporter and her brother are stepping on each other's toes.  There's a hit squad of 4 very hep cats after the princess.

Kaiju Watch: Ebirah, Horror of the Deep (1966)

Watched:  03/20/2020
Format:  BluRay
Viewing:  First
Decade:  1960's

Well, the poster is an amazing summary of this film, so I'll let it speak for itself.

Heist Watch: Cash On Demand (1962)

Watched:  01/08/2020
Format:  Noir Alley on TCM
Viewing:  First
Decade:  1960's

I'd heard Hammer produced some thrillers and whatnot, but I'd not really seen any - my exposure to the studio's output had been mostly limited to their horror films.

Shown as a Christmas treat by Noir Alley's Eddie Muller - who fessed up that it's more noir adjacent than noir - this small-scale production is a terrific sort-of real-time story of a robbery at a bank branch in a small town well outside of London.

Halloween Watch: Night of the Living Dead (1968)

Watched:  10/28/2019
Format:  Criterion BluRay
Viewing:  Unknown
Decade:  1960's

50 years on, Night of the Living Dead (1968) continues to do more than "work" as a film.  In addition to the anxiety and dread I felt rewatching the movie, almost nothing within Romero's film has aged or lost urgency.*  And, of course, while the relevance as a mirror and social experiment is discussion worthy, it also demands discussion as patient zero in a cultural shift in media extending beyond horror.

Chandler Watch: Marlowe (1969)

Watched: 08/14/2019
Format:  TCM on DVR
Viewing:  First
Decade:  1960's

People take a lot of liberties when adapting Raymond Chandler novels to screen.  It's not a huge surprise.  After all, Chandler's books are winding, complicated, and don't exactly make it easy to translate Marlowe's inner-monologue or exposition in a way that's easy to cram into 90 - 120 minutes and keep the audience with you.  To this day, people complain The Big Sleep is "too complicated".

It's been a while since I read The Little Sister, I think the fifth Marlowe novel and the work upon which the studio based Marlowe (1969).   Between reading several Chandler novels in a row at that time and years inbetween, not every detail of the plot had stuck with me, but impressions of various characters remained, and as the movie unspooled, it did provide me with a roadmap and certain expectations for the film that gave me a leg up vis-a-vis following the plot and keeping up.  A glance at some contemporary reviews suggest that even Ebert and Siskel found it a bit muddled.

Still, the story sticks surprisingly close to the novel, updating some factors for 1969 that would have looked very different in the original setting of 1949.  And, I'll argue, while people feel like they've got a grip on Chandler by way of reputation, in practice his novels tend to feel like a morass of detail until the denouement.  That's part of the fun (and Hammett did same in books like The Thin Man).

Apollo 11 - 50th Anniversary and PBS's "American Experience: Chasing the Moon"

The past couple of weeks marked the 50th anniversary of the first manned lunar landing, thanks to the crew of Apollo 11, Neil Armstrong, Buzz Aldrin and Michael Collins.  Plus, the might of NASA, contractors to NASA, government bureaucrats, politicians and, us, the voting and tax-paying public.

From July 16th to July 24th, 1969, three brave people hurled through the void of space, two walked the face of an alien landscape, and then all returned, safely, to Earth.  All of this just sixty-six years after the Kitty Hawk Flyer took to the sky and 27 years after the first V2 rocket.  The scope of progress and achievement during this window was unprecedented in human history as two nations threw down the gauntlet to see who could place a boot onto lunar soil. 

PODCAST: "The Italian Job" (1969) w/ SimonUK and Ryan

Watched:  05/07/2019
Format:  DVD
Viewing:  Third
Decade:  1960's


SimonUK finally gets around to talking about one of his favorite films, a heist film about a scrappy team pulling off the impossible with cheer and good spirits. Honestly, it's mostly just a love fest for a movie both Simon and Ryan enjoy immensely.




Music:

Get a Bloomin' Move On/Self Preservation Society - Don Black/Quincy Jones, The Italian Job OST

The mentioned poster for The Italian Job that seems to have nothing to do with the film:

SimonUK Cinema Series:

PODCAST: "Lawrence of Arabia" (1962) w/ Alfredo4

Watched: Did not
Format: BluRay/ 70mm
Viewing: unknown
Decade: 1960's

We get epic as Alfredo joins us for his first podcast and takes us on a journey with "Lawrence of Arabia", one of our favorite films! Settle in for a lengthy discussion as we ponder Lawrence the man and the character and how this movie blends myth and fact to create one of the most engaging films of all time.

Doc Watch: Apollo 11 (2019)

Watched:  03/17/2019
Format:  Alamo South Lamar
Viewing:  First
Decade:  2010's

This year marks the 50th Anniversary of the Apollo 11 spaceflight, during which Neil Armstrong, Buzz Aldrin and Michael Collins reached the moon and during which Armstrong and Aldrin became the first humans to ever walk the surface of our satellite.

This evening, JuanD, Jamie and I hit the local cinema to take in the spectacle that is Apollo 11 (2019), and if you can tear yourself away from whatever new shows got dumped on Hulu and Netflix on Friday, I'm going to go ahead and recommend you give this movie a go.

PODCAST: "On Her Majesty's Secret Service" (1969) - Bond Watch 04, w/ SimonUK and Ryan

Watched:  03/03/2019
Format:  BluRay
Viewing:  unknown
Decade:  1960's

SimonUK and Ryan take on that one Bond movie starring George Lazenby as 007. Bond falls in love and fights Telly Savalas on a toboggan run. SimonUK and Ryan puzzle out what sort of lady gets Bond to want to settle down, what led to an Australian men's wear model putting on the tux, and what it all means 50 years after the film's release.




Music: 
James Bond Theme - Monty Norman & John Barry
We Have All the Time In the World - performed by Louis Armstrong, written by John Barry with lyrics by Hal David

Bond Playlist:

PODCAST: "Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer" (1964) & "Charlie Brown Christmas" (1965) - Episode 3 of Holiday Cinema Series (w/ Jamie and Ryan)

Watched:  12/09/2018
Format:  DVR off network TV
Viewing:  Dozens.  Unknown.
Decade:  1960's

It's time to talk TV Christmas specials! Jamie brings us back to kid-hood with "Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer" (1964) and "A Charlie Brown Christmas" (1965). We ponder these two perennial favorites for all ages, how they look now and what we still get out of them.




Music:

Christmas Time is Here - Vince Guaraldi Trio from A Charlie Brown Christmas
Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer - Burl Ives, Rudolph he Red-Nosed Reindeer OST
Hark! The Herald Angels Sings - Vince Guaraldi Trio and children's choir from A Charlie Brown Christmas
Silver and Gold - Burl Ives, Rudolph he Red-Nosed Reindeer OST
O Tannenbaum - Vince Guaraldi Trio from A Charlie Brown Christmas


Holiday Cinema Series Playlist

Mary Poppins Watch: Mary Poppins (1964)

Watched:  10/09/2018
Format:  BluRay
Viewing:  Unknown
Decade:  1960's


I @#$%ing love Mary Poppins  (1964), man.  Both the character and the movie.  Like, unironically, unabashedly - there is not one thing I do not like in Mary Poppins.  It is, as they say, practically perfect in every way.  As is Julie Andrews.