Noir Watch: The Shadow on the Wall (1950)

Watched:  06/27/2019
Format:  Noir Alley TCM on DVR
Viewing:  First
Decade:  1950's

The core idea of this movie is so... evil... I almost think it'd make for a swell comedy. 

Ann Sothern - a sort of "America's sweetheart" of the era - plays a woman who murders her own sister but can pin it on her brother-in-law.  BUT!  Her niece saw the whole thing, so she won't go to the gas chamber, she's in a race to kill the little girl before Nancy Davis (read: Nancy Reagan) helps the the little girl recover her memory.

I mean, you can imagine the Looney Tunes quality of repeated murder set-up after murder set-up to kill a bright-eyed little girl who is working through her cloudy memories by playing dolls with Nancy Reagan. 

This movie plays it straight, is a lesser entry in everyone's resume but that of child actor Gigi Perreau (still living, people!), and is good enough as yet another entry in the "psychology is a an alchemical force toward unlocking the mind" films of the era.  It does co-star a pre-Ronald-betrothed Nancy Davis, who is better than I figured she'd be, but still very much Nancy Reagan.*  It does not feature nearly enough Zachary Scott, whom I always like. 

My favorite scene is one where Sothern poisoned the little girl's chocolate milk and it seems like anything can happen in this particular set-up, shot from the kids' eye level as her friend wanders in to see why she isn't drinking her milk.  Just great stuff. 


*I'm sorry - the lady just seemed like a scold all the time when I was a kid, and she feels that way here, too

Noir Watch: Nobody Lives Forever (1946)

Watched:  06/28/2019
Format:  Noir Alley on TCM on DVR
Viewing:  First
Decade:  1940's

A bit of lighter, post-war crime drama. 

Garfield plays a former con-man coming back to New York to reclaim the girl he left when he enlisted, and the wad of money he left in her hands.  She's thrown in with a club-owner and spent the money, and so he heads out to LA to reconnect with an old friend.

Running into some pre-war fellow goons, he's turned onto a scheme to rip-off a wealthy widow, who turns out to be less tired old lady and instead the lovely Geraldine Fitzgerald.  Trouble ensues.

The movie is so light in places and features so many comedic bits, it barely feels like noir - but structurally, it fits the bill.  Nothing ground-breaking here, but Garfield shows his chops as a strong leading man, and we get some great character actor performances and Fitzgerald demonstrates why she flirted with major stardom.

WWII Watch: Tora! Tora! Tora! (1970)

Watched:  06/25/2019
Format:  TCM on DVR
Viewing:  First
Decade:  1970's

A fascinating oddball of a movie - part epic, part recreation, part disaster film, part meditation on the futility of war, Tora! Tora! Tora! (1970) is an all-star retelling the of the real life events leading up to, and a recreation of, the attack on Pearl Harbor.

Originally this was supposed to be two separate movies, one Japanese and one American.  And it almost is - the Japanese parts were directed by Japanese directors (Kurosawa was notoriously fired off the film!), and the American parts: an American director.  I can only wonder how that would have worked in practice, perhaps better.  Both sections reflect the mistakes made along the way - failure of diplomacy, duplicitous use of diplomatic formalities, bureaucratic loggerheads, etc...  Each section reflects back the stance of the home country on what happened at Pearl Harbor in tone and approach, which can make for something of a split-personality to the film that doesn't always work, but probably informs the viewer in 2019 what was felt a generation after the war.

Seafaring Watch: The Sea Wolf (1941)

Watched:  06/21/2019
Format:  BluRay
Viewing:  First
Decade:  1940's

For some reason folks try to file this movie under "noir", and... maybe...?  But I'm going to just go ahead and say "drama".  I'm not willing to do mental the work to turn a Jack London story on a boat into a noir.

I actually broke one of my own rules and purchased this BluRay a couple of months ago having had never seen the movie.  Honestly, I looked at the starring names, looked at the source material and the name of the director and figured "I've spent money on far worse films".

A wildly timely movie - perhaps depressingly so - as the original story by novelist Jack London was adapted to reflect the times.  A man on the run played by John Garfield joins up with a ship (agreeing after almost getting shanghied).  Meanwhile, an escaped convict (Lupino) is hiding on a ferry to San Francisco when it's struck by a steamship.  She and a writer (Knox) are rescued by the crew of The Ghost, but with no intention of setting them back to land.  The Ghost is a 1900-era pirate ship, and those aboard are a crew of the worst of society, who hate themselves almost as much as they hate each other (and assume the worst in everyone).

Rock Watch: Bohemian Rhapsody (2018)

Watched:  06/15/2019
Format:  BluRay
Viewing: First
Decade:  2010's

One of my earliest memories is being about three, hanging from the inside of the garage door and singing "We Will Rock You" and kicking the garage door to the beat.  Who knew a 3 year old would have that kind of appreciation for a Brian May guitar lick?

It's hard to piece together what I knew about Queen and when. It doesn't help that time for kids is so distended, and what were minor hiatuses for the band were epic blocks of time to me back then.  I do remember them coming back into my consciousness with "Radio Gaga".  I remember a bit of Live Aid on playback (but not live).  I remember Freddie passing.

And, of course, anyone around at the time remembers the post-mortem, Wayne's World supported explosion of "Bohemian Rhapsody", a song I can't say I'd heard before.

Noir Watch: Nora Prentiss (1947)

watched:  06/15/2019
format:  Noir Alley on TCM
viewing:  First
Decade:  1940's

Eddie Muller intro'd this movie by discussing how this film was marketed and considered "a woman's picture", and from what I've gathered about Women's Pictures of the mid-20th Century, I can see why that label got dropped on it.  But had he not mentioned this in the opening, I'd have seen this as soft-boiled noir and maybe mentioned women's films in passing.  Bear in mind, one of my favorite movies if Mildred Pierce, which one can see as equal parts Women's Picture and Film Noir, so that's not taking a particular stance, it just changes the formula a bit.

Silent Watch: Pandora's Box (1929)

Watched:  06/12/2019
Format:  TCM on DVR
Viewing:  First
Decade:  1920's

I've been meaning to watch this movie for decades.  Literally.  I've even owned a copy of it for a few years, but - let's be honest - unless you're one of the Silent Film buffs, it takes a bit of extra energy and focus to get through a 2-hour silent movie.*

I first stumbled across Louise Brooks just as I exited film school (I believe the doc Looking for Lulu was airing on cable), and back then, finding her work was incredibly difficult.  I rented a few films in which she appears as a minor or background character, but the GW Pabst stuff eluded me.  The DVD copies you were supposed to be able to get were expensive and of notoriously bad quality.  But, the past few years, various groups have been restoring and making available some of that height-of-her-career/ powers material.

Noir Watch: Dead Reckoning (1947)

Watched:  06/06/2019
Format:  Noir Alley on TCM on DVR
Viewing:  First
Decade:  1940's

I know it seems like I heap praise on every single noir that comes along, but I'm usually trying to find some good in the film or a reason it was included in Eddie Muller's Noir Alley line-up.

Muller himself warned us up front that Dead Reckoning (1947) wasn't going to shake the Earth, and in practice - the movie has a wide variety of components that, if I were to tell you "it stars so-and-so, it has this and that plot element, it has a unique location" you'd be nodding and getting noir-jazzed for the movie.  But, in execution...  the movie just feels like a lesser picture almost immediately, and it just never manages to catch fire.

Action Watch: John Wick 3 (2019)

Watched:  05/24/2019
Format:  Alamo Mueller
Viewing:  First
Decade:  2010's

I'm not sure what to say about the John Wick franchise.  It is what it is.  A celebration of cinematic violence in a world set up specifically to support deeply stylized violence with no sense of consequences (despite what the movie keeps trying to say is the theme, but which, in no way, resonates with anything we're seeing).  Essentially a self-playing videogame, the movies are about the glamour of killing, and being unkillable in a world where the only real humans are a few named characters, with a sub-class of nameless henchmen, and then NPC's of the rest of humanity sort of appearing as shapes and colors the assassins can disappear into, but who aren't really there.

Baseball Watch: Bull Durham (1988)

Watched:  05/15/2019
Format:  Amazon streaming
Viewing:  First
Decade:  1980's

I was about thirteen when this movie hit, and it was one of those movies that arrived that everyone else saw when it came out, but at the time I wasn't that interested in baseball or Susan Sarandon, so I skipped it.  Well, life changes things in some amazing ways.

I suppose if there's a marker to say "was this a good movie or not?" I can point to the fact that I put this on as I was about to do something else (edit a podcast) but was fiddling around before settling in, and just put it on to have something on for a few minutes to see what it was like, and the next thing I knew I was finishing the movie.

Kaiju Watch: Godzilla 1984/ Return of Godzilla (1984)

Watched:  05/21/2019
Format:  BluRay
Viewing:  Third/ First
Decade: 1980's

Way back in '86, I rented the American version of this film for my birthday.  And when I say "American version", it helps to know a bit about the original Godzilla: King of the Monsters from back in the 1950's.

Noir City Austin - Day 3 "Nightfall" (1957) & "Murder By Contract" (1958)

First, I forgot to mention that on Day 2, the TCM Backlot Austin Chapter met up at Noir City and grabbed a picture, and you'll see me awkwardly standing in the back.  Thanks to Jane, et al, for organizing.

Next: Upfront, I'll tell you, I only saw two of the four films on Day 3 of Noir City Austin.  This is not due to film programming, venue or any of that. I just had stuff I needed to go do as the coming week of work/life is set to be  busy one.  So, I was able to see the first two films shown on Sunday.

Noir City Austin continued exploring the 1950's, and by the late 1950's, the differences in style of dress, attitude and film-making choices between the first film shown on Friday night from '49 and by the time we hit boom-time/ post-Korea America in '57, a lot has shifted.  Hell, men aren't even wearing hats as a required feature.

Noir City Austin - Day 2: "City That Never Sleeps" (1953) & "Private Hell 36" (1954)

Watched:  05/18/2019
Format:  Noir City Austin at Alamo Ritz
Viewing:  First
Decade:  1950's

Long ago I had purchased tickets to see a baseball game in the evening, so I was only scheduled to see two films for Noir City Austin, Day 2.

The theme for 2019 was a follow up on 2018, which was Noir in the 1940's, year-by-year.  This 10 film cycle was tracing noir as we left the 1940's and how and why the films changed as we hit the 1950's as cultural issues crept into the films and television competed with the big screen and informed the lives of characters on screen.  And, by the mid-to-late 1950's, began influencing how movies were shot so they'd work on the television sets of the era as Hollywood looked to cash in on the secondary income stream.

Gen-X Watch: Wine Country (2019)

Watched:  05/15/2019
Format:  Netflix
Viewing:  First
Decade:  2010's

I wish I'd disliked this movie enough so that I could have a spoofy title to the post like "Whine Country" to tag onto Wine Country (2019).  I guarantee you, some bright-eyed reviewer has used it out there somewhere.  After all the film is about a bunch of upper-middle class to upper class women coming together to go through the entirely predictable steps of a "girls weekend"/ reunion film and all of the weirdly specific predictable beats (despite the fact that reunion movies are not my jam) that fall out.

People be having lives that are more complicated than when you're 21 working for minimum wage, y'all.

PODCAST(s)! "Legend of Billie Jean" (1985) and "Pump Up the Volume" (1990) - Teens in Revolt! w/ Maxwell, Marshall and Ryan!

Watched:  05/02/2019
Format:  LoBJ - Amazon Streaming, PUtV - DVD
Viewing:  LoBJ - First!, PUtV - unknown
Decade:  1980's, 1990s

For more on The PodCast - where to find the podcast with your favorite service, etc...

The Signal Watch blog - we also write essays and review movies and stuff

Become a Patron!

*NSFW* Maxwell and Marshall come into the studio to talk TEENS IN REVOLT!  It's "The Legend of Billie Jean" (1985) and "Pump the Volume" (1990), two movies where teens grab the airwaves and tap into the spirit of being a teen and find themselves on the wrong side of the law!  We take a look at two classic teen movies for our generation and try to decide: what are these kids so dang grumpy about?

Part 1



Part 2



Music

Part 1
Invincible - Pat Benatar, Legend of Billie Jean OST
Rebel Yell - Billy Idol, Legend of Billie Jean OST

Part 2
Everybody Know - Leonard Cohen, I'm Your Man
Titanium Exposé - Sonic Youth, Goo/ Pump Up the Volume OST



High School Movies

Workin' Watch: 9-to-5 (1980)

Watched:  05/ 03/2019
Format:  Amazon Streaming
Viewing:  First
Decade:  1980's


I was about five when 9-to-5 (1980) came out, and the theme song by co-star Dolly Parton was everywhere for about a year or two, remaining a staple of radio play to this day.  Because the movie dealt with non-space-battle, gorilla or robot related issues, and I think was an R-Rating in the era of G, PG and R, I did not see the movie at the time.  I was pretty sure then that it was not a sex romp based mostly on how many people went to see it (it was huge), and just never got around to seeing it as I grew up. 

Which is weird - I'm not a giant Jane Fonda fan, but I find Lilly Tomlin brilliant whenever she's on a screen in front of me, and... I mean, Dolly Parton!  If you don't love Dolly Parton, I don't want to know you.  And Dabney Coleman was a thing back in this era - people loved him (he might have been a great take on J. Jonah Jameson in a 1980's-era Spidey movie if a studio had gotten its ac together.  I'm just saying.)

From a purely sociological standpoint, it's fascinating to see a movie about the women of my parents generation who were going through the first phases of a lot of what we deal with today, but based upon the rules of the era where women were housewives, teachers, nurses and... secretaries.  And we've all seen the role of secretaries on Mad Men (or should.  Sucks to your GoT, give me ad executives drinking on the job). 

PODCAST: "Avengers: Endgame" (2019) - Avengers Kinda Chronological Countdown w/ Jamie & Ryan

Watched:  04/25 & 26/2019
Format:  Alamo Slaughter Lane/ South Lamar
Viewing:  First/ Second
Decade:  2010's

Jamie and Ryan went to see "Avengers: Endgame" twice in two days. We talk the epic conclusion to the first ten or so years of Marvel Studios, what worked for us, what challenged us, and how it fits in with the world of comics from which it sprang. Don't listen in if you're avoiding spoilers - because we've got plenty.




Music:
Portals - Alan Silvestri, "Avengers: Endgame" OST 

PODCAST! "Lifeforce" (1985) - SimonUK Cinema Series w/ Ryan!

Watched:  04/09/2019
Format:  BluRay
Viewing:  First
Decade:  1980's


SimonUK brings a charming, home spun sort of tale about (nude) space vampires, not-Michael Caine, a blank Texan astronaut, a London-based Zombie plague, forced kissing on Patrick Stewart and more story than a movie has a right to contain.





Music:
Lifeforce Theme - Henry Mancini, Lifeforce OST
Call of the Wild - Henry Mancini, Lifeforce OST

Huh Watch: Hellboy (2019)

Watched:  04/17/2019
Format:  Alamo Mueller
Viewing:  First
Decade:  2010's

Stuart's flight was canceled, grounding him in Austin til tomorrow and I was planning to see Hellboy (2019) at 7:20 with SimonUK, so world's collided this evening as SimonUK and Stuart met, sat on either side of me and then both proudly announced their fealty for director Neil Marshall.  Truly, these two dudes are two peas in a pod.

So - yeah, I'd heard Hellboy was supposed to be terrible, which is a good place to set your gauge when watching the movie.  It both earns the bad reviews and maybe defies them a bit.

DC Watch: Teen Titans Go! To the Movies (2018)

Watched:  04/12/2019
Format:  Amazon Streaming
Viewing:  First
Decade:  2010's

Honestly, if you'd told me 20 years ago that in 2018 there would be so much superhero stuff on TV and at the movies I wouldn't blink to miss a Teen Titans tv show, let alone a movie (and, indeed, that Teen Titans would be a household word), I think you would have blown my 1998 mind. 

So, I don't watch Teen Titans Go! 95% because I only have so many hours in a day.  When the film of Teen Titans Go! To the Movies (2018) came out, I was busy and just didn't see it, but everyone was telling me it was great, so I picked it up "on-sale" via Amazon Streaming (thanks for the tip, Stuart). 

Yeah!  It's weird, super fun stuff.  Kid safe, but wonderfully absurd for the adults - it's just amazing how the movie works on two different levels in virtually every scene and with every line.  When the kids who saw it now return to it in a few years, I think they'll be genuinely surprised at what WB and DC signed off on here - it all feels like one long in-joke for comics fans, paired with the absurdities of comics AND the superhero movie boom, playing as a moral lesson the movie explicitly does not care about (giving us the best/ most honest ending I've seen in a kiddie cartoon in a while).

Anyway - I totally dug it.  And cannot believe this gem exists. 

Kudos to the Teen Titans Go! voice cast - that is some A+work.  And to the celebrity voices who dropped in, like Nic Cage as Superman.