Mystery Watch: Enola Holmes (2020)

 

Watched:  10/5/2020
Format:  Netflix
Viewing:  First
Decade:  2020
Director:  Harry Bradbeer

I am *pretty* sure this wasn't aimed at me, but it was kind of delightful.  

This is one highly-nit-pickable movie, and I won't say I didn't have a few times I didn't say something out loud during the movie to Jamie - but it always seemed in poor taste and not in the spirit of the thing.  

Enola Holmes tells the story of Sherlock Holmes' (Henry Cavill) younger sister - a prodigy in her own right (Millie Bobby Brown), but just 16.  She's been raised in the Holmes family manor entirely by her mother, her brothers having had departed shortly after their father passed when Enola was very young.  

Her mother (the always wonderful Helena Bonham Carter) has raised her outside of social norms, recognizing her capacity and aware that a late Victorian-era England will ruin her with its expectations and limitations.  But on her 16th birthday, her mother disappears.  Flat out seems to have ducked out, leaving not exactly clues, but a few items which will provide comfort and perhaps a means of communication.  

Disney Attempt-at-Spooky Watch: The Adventures of Ichabod and Mr. Toad (1949)

 

Watched:  10/04/2020
Format: Disney+
Viewing:  I'm calling it a first for the whole movie
Decade:  1940's
Director:  James Algar, Clyde Geronimi, Jack Kenney

So, we were hunting around for something spooky to watch on Disney+, and I saw they had The Adventures of Ichabod and Mr. Toad (1949).  I'd never seen the movie in its entirety.  If I ever saw the Wind in the Willows bit that makes up the first half, I don't recall it at all.   

However, the Ichabod Crane part based on Washington Irving's Sleepy Hollow is for good reasons, a Halloween staple.  And, I've seen it a dozen times or so before.  

Taken as a whole, this movie is very weird and unnecessary.  It's clearly two stories that have nothing to do with each other slapped together with a wildly awkward framing device of a library of real books and voice over by, first, Basil Rathbone and then Bing Crosby, which tells me something about how much the left hand and right were talking to each other as this came together.  

As a kid, my first real exposure to Mr. Toad was via the Disney World attraction, Mr. Toad's Wild Ride, which was - I ain't gonna lie - super f'ing fun. My memory was that the ride was chaotic and goofy as hell.  And I understood it was based on a fancy toad who got his hands on a car.  

Well, the movie version is... kind of annoying.  I don't really have another word for it.  Unlike most Disney, there's no character development, and Toad just seems like a problem for everyone around him.  Like, that one friend who is now on drugs and you're all supposed to make sure he doesn't harm themself or anyone else.  The animation is pretty good, and it gave us the weasels that pop up in Roger Rabbit, but...  yeah.  This is the rare Disney animation that I just have no affection for - but weirdly like the ride.

And Ichabod itself is also strangely... boring.  And there's no one to actually like.  But, when you do get to the actual Sleepy Hollow scene, it's amazing work.  But 5 minutes or so is not enough to carry a whole movie.

What I guess is that Walt, post-WWII, was just not all that into the animation studio stuff anymore, and you can feel his hand off the wheel in the storytelling department - something that would plague them til Little Mermaid.  It's not horrible stuff, but it feels like someone let the animators just animate whatever they felt like rather than working toward a cohesive story, for two whole stories.  

But, again, that Headless Horseman.

Hammer Watch: The Brides of Dracula (1960)

 

Watched:  10/04/2020
Format:  Amazon Streaming
Viewing:  First
Decade:  1960
Director:  Terence Fisher

I'd not paid much attention to the non-Christopher Lee movies from Hammer that pitched themselves as Dracula, but decided this Halloween I'm going to watch all of the Draculas from the studio in order.  So, next up from Horror of Dracula is the 1960 entry, The Brides of Dracula.  

A prologue lets us know that the film takes place in proximity to the death of Dracula in the prior film.  The opening follows the journey of a young Parisian woman headed to teach French in a school in Transylvania.  She is held over at an inn (unknown to her, intentionally so) where she meets a wealthy Baroness who takes her to her castle.  

Noir Watch: They Won't Believe Me (1947)

Watched:  10/02/2020
Format:  TCM Noir Alley
Viewing:  First
Decade:  1940's
Director:  Irving Pichel

An interesting noir with a series of curious twists and a solid cast.  Presented on TCM's Noir Alley, host Eddie Muller brought in author Christina Lane who recently released a book on the film's producer Joan Harrison, Phantom Lady: Hollywood Producer Joan Harrison, the Forgotten Woman Behind Hitchcock (which would make a welcome Christmas gift for us at Signal Watch HQ).  Harrison is worth discussing for her path into the film business, sensibility she brought to Hitchcock's story-telling, and... frankly, some of the other movies she's produced - including Phantom Lady* and Ride the Pink Horse - are fantastic and owe a lot of their story strength and sensibility to Harrison.

They Won't Believe Me (1947) is framed with a murder trial. Young is the defendant, and he's telling his tale/ spilling his guts from the witness stand, trying to explain what really happened, and which looks, honestly, really, really bad for him.

Watch Party Watch: Someone I Touched (1975)

 

Watched:  09/22/2020
Format:  Amazon Watch Party
Viewing:  First
Decade:  1970's
Director:  Lou Antonio

Well, this falls squarely into "something I probably wouldn't have watched on my own".  A 1975 TV movie about syphilis and the people in Southern California who get it.  However, it does star Cloris Leachman making 1970's outfits actually work.  

It's easy to forget - we live in an era of media that's deeply scrubbed and sanitized.  Sure, sure, we've got gritty heroes and complex moral subplots, but a movie torn from the headlines about how sleeping around on your spouse isn't just naughty, it can give you a debilitating (but treatable) disease would be considered un-airable on network TV.  In an era where we had basically three networks and PBS, this was what a network decided would make for good all-purpose viewing.  

And, it's surprisingly good, helped along by Leachman turning in a rock solid performance and bringing some realism to a melodrama that includes infidelity and the impact beyond our immediate group of characters.  In fact, it starts far out from Leachman and works it's way back.  

I don't want to oversell the movie, but there's some willingness to deal with real-life unpleasantness and leave things a bit ambiguous that could exist in today's landscape, but it's hard not to imagine it getting glossed up and the audience missing the point and turning it into a game of "who do we blame here, because everything is about winning and losing?"

Comedy Watch: Hot Rod (2007)

Watched:  09/17/2020
Format:  Amazon Prime
Viewing:  First
Decade:  2000's
Director:  Akiva Schaffer

I'm a little surprised this movie isn't more of a cult favorite.  Or maybe it is, and I just don't know that cult.  4 out of five times, this is exactly the kind of movie I am thinking of when I go looking for a comedy. 

YMMV.

Noir Watch: Danger Signal (1945)

 

Watched:  09/19/2020
Format:  Noir Alley on TCM

Viewing:  First

Decade:  1940's

Director:  Robert Florey

Noir Alley is back, and I was delighted to see another movie by Austin hometown-boy-made-good, Zachary Scott.  Danger Signal (1945) is a WWII-era potboiler that's of the noir flavor that has kind of become a thing in Lifetime Channel thrillers.  Scott plays a ne'er-do-well who escapes the murder of a woman for whom he's managed to somehow plant a suicide note.  

He winds up in an idyllic California town where he boards with a middle-aged woman and her stenographer daughter, played by Faye Emerson.  He woos and wins Emerson, who doesn't notice the strapping, handsome, baritone-voiced scientist who keeps bringing her work may have the hots for her.  Instead, she slips for Scott's charm.  That is until her 17 year old sister comes home and Scott pivots his interest to her.  

Emerson has a friend who is a psychologist/ scientist who gets involved (Rosemary DeCamp), and more or less tears Scott apart as the charming sociopath he actually knows he is.  It's kinda cool.  I was kinda there for Dr. Silla.  

ANYWAY, Faye Emerson steals a vial of @#$%ing botulism from her hunky scientist friend and plans to kill Scott because, basically, he's a big shit bag and shouldn't get to keep being a shit bag who will hurt her sister.

It's a weird movie that seems like they just kept forgetting parts of the movie.  Scott has a limp he fakes as a war wound that they just don't mention.  A gun shows up, but is never really used.  And the end is - weird.  Like, totally unsatisfying.  Which Muller discussed in the backmatter of the episode.

Anyway - Zach Scott is terrific, Emerson is pretty good, and I felt like the overall direction by Robert Florey was solid and built tension despite the narrative bumps.  Special note for Mona Freeman who does a remarkable heel-turn in the back third of the film, and a young Dick Erdman playing "Bunkie", who is everyone's personal disappointment.

Watch of the Damned: Creation of the Humanoids (1962)

Watched:  09/18/2020

Format:  Watch Party

Viewing:  First (and last!)

Decade:  1960's

Director:  Wesley Barry

...R.O.T.O.R.

...Santa with Muscles

...Monster a Go-Go...  

Sure, we watch a lot of not-great movies, but some feel as if they exist to test your very sanity.  Some movies are so insanely bad, so weirdly made and uncomfortable to watch - made and released with what appears to be utter sincerity on the part of the filmmakers - sincerity that serves no one and seems like a hallucination more than a delusion...  

These films join our personal canon of Movies of the Damned.  

We've had a wild ride this summer as we've enjoyed our Friday night Amazon Watch Parties, but Jenifer found an amazing entry this week with Creation of the Humanoids (1962).  

It's the movie that dares to ask:  but what if a movie was 96% exposition?  

and

What if everyone just stood on their marks with a minimum of motion for the runtime of a film?

In some ways, I give it credit.  It does nothing but propose a few sci-fi premises and then builds on those premises, asking questions no one asked and providing a sea of answers that no one cares about, only to ask more questions.  And it does it over and over and over for what I am pretty sure was a full calendar year, but you will find to be a neat 75 minute or so runtime.  

It's a post-nuclear-holocaust future and man is barely hanging in there despite shiny outfits, women with rocket bras, nifty architecture and the help of our robot friends.  

People seem to be on their way out, as robots seem to be figuring out self-replication.  There's a herd of guys running around yelling MAGA dressing in shiny Confederate uniforms and harassing robots.  They have a cute clubhouse and everything.  Meanwhile, Robots are, in fact, secretly rising up to replace humans.  

All of this is told, not shown, in lengthy, lengthy speeches which would make a high school forensics teacher proud.  

The make-up on the humanoids/ robots is weirdly excellent - the work of Jack "Universal Monsters" Pierce himself, apparently slumming by 1962.  

I can't do this movie justice.  I hate it so much I like it.  It's mind-bogglingly inept, except that... the cinematography, sets, and make-up all work fine.  It's just that there's only 4 sets, and long, long scenes that will not end containing nothing but nonsense sci-fi talk that can and should have been SHOWN.  Just when you think this might be an allegory for something - NO.  We move right on past that and it's right back to a very concrete story about the concrete problems of robots.  It's like the mad ramblings of the worst nerd in your class who gets why robots are interesting, but not at all how a story works.  And was given money to make a movie.  

I... I'm worn out just thinking about it.

Fosse Watch: All That Jazz (1979)

Watched:  09/15/2020
Format:  TCM on DVR
Viewing:  First (all the way through)

Decade:  1970's

Director:  Bob Fosse

Not that long ago I watched the FX limited series Fosse/Verdon, an FX television production following the later careers of Broadway and Hollywood director Bob Fosse and his ex-wife - famed performer, Gwen Verdon.  If you've not seen it, I can't recommend it enough.  It stars two of the greats of this era, Michelle Williams and Sam Rockwell, and features some amazingly nuanced performances by both, in a co-dependent relationship/ partnership that's bigger than a failed marriage.  

I'm not a musical theatre follower - and certainly no historian of the second half of the 20th Century when it comes to musical theater or movie musicals, but it's not hard to see the impact Bob Fosse left on the form, and why everyone is still scrambling to keep up.  His stage show of Chicago (2002) managed to win Academy Awards when turned into a hit movie decades after his passing (1987).  And during his lifetime he was a huge part of the movement that made musicals relevant, updated dance on Broadway, and turned sexiness from something blushing and suggested to something overt.  And - he made the films Sweet Charity, Cabaret, Lenny, Star80 and All That Jazz (1979).

I'd seen parts of All That Jazz years ago, but on a channel that cut it for TV and for commercials, and given the flow, I threw in the towel with an intention to watch it all in one shot - which I never did.  But i did see enough of it to gather some basic facts - I figured it was a confessional auto-biopic from when "directed by Bob Fosse" came up, and saw what the film was about.  So I didn't go into Fosse/Verdon totally unprepared.

Forgot to Write It Up Watch: "The Bigamist" (1953) and "A Crime Against Joe" (1956)

 

Watched:  The Bigamist 09/02 and ACAJ 09/09/2020

Format:  Watch Party w/ Jenifer

Viewing:  First for both

Decade:  1950's

Director:  Ida Lupino and  Lee Sholem

Jenifer's been hosting Amazon Watch Parties on Wednesdays, and she's picked some good ones.  And A Crime Against Joe (1956).  

I was delighted to finally see The Bigamist, starring and directed by the great Ida Lupino.  And I watched A Crime Against Joe.  It was certainly a movie.

Not doing a write up of either, but suffice it to say, anything with Lupino is a pretty good idea, and seeing her get to direct is always a treat.

Lupino ponders how Edmond O'Brien of all guys landed two women at once

Bear Watch: Grizzly (1976)

 

Watched:  09/07/2020

Format:  Amazon Streaming

Viewing:  First

Decade:  1970's

Director:  William Girdler

So, I very much remember this VHS box fading on the shelf of pretty much every video rental place I went from the mid-80's to the late 90's.  I think it was usually in the horror section, which is an inaccurate place to put the movie, but it's not action, either.  But I never thought much about it - I just didn't rent it.  Looked like a movie about a large bear eating people, and I was pretty far into my 30's before I realized I liked movies about large animals giving humanity a bad time.

So, apparently there's a sequel that was never released, and it includes actors like Louise Fletcher, John Rhys Davies, George Clooney and.. most importantly.. Laura Dern.  Shot in 1983, it's just NOW about to get a release.  And I figured "well, I don't want to not know what happened in the first one...", and even though the original is 100% Laura Dern-free, Jamie and I fired it up.  

Friends: what if Jaws, but bear?  

That is the question posited by Grizzly, the highest earning independent movie ever when it was released in 1976.  And I'm not exaggerating - someone went to see Jaws and wrote down the events of that movie, and tried to map their own script onto the story of Jaws.  But instead of a 25 foot shark, we have a 15' grizzly bear.  Instead of a Sheriff, we have a Captain of the Park Rangers.  

They even include scenes like the Captain getting drunk when someone gets killed, and a spooky monologue about a herd of grizzlies eating people.  There are three main characters, but one of them (played by "that guy" actor Richard Jaeckel) is a mix of Hooper and Quint (he even wears Hooper's little hat).  

There's a Park Manager who doesn't want to shut the park down, invites in hunters... you're maybe familiar with the plot.

Anyway - it's also kind of plodding and gives you an idea what Spielberg and his editors did so well that this movie did not.  But, again, wildly successful!  

Anyhoo... I want to podcast this with Simon at some point.  So, more to come.

Ann Miller/ Lucille Ball Watch: Too Many Girls (1940)

Watched:  09/08/2020

Format:  TCM on DVR

Viewing:  First

Decade:  1940's

Director:  George Abbott

I'd forgotten this was living on my DVR and I needed something to watch on the elliptical - and it starred Lucille Ball.

Too Many Girls (1940) is a particular breed of Hollywood musical that was about big dance numbers loosely tied together with characters working through a paper-thin plot, and really an excuse to get a whole bunch of characters on screen at one time for song and dance numbers.  The better ones are the ones choreographed by Busby Berkeley, and then there's stuff like this with dancers sort of just running around a lot.

Noir Watch: The Unfaithful (1947)

 

Watched:  I dunno.  A couple of months ago.

Format:  Noir Alley on TCM

Viewing:  First

Decade:  1940's

Director: Vincent Sherman

I just totally forgot to write this one up and realized that today whilst thinking about Zachary Scott.  As you do.

The Unfaithful (1947) is essentially a domestic version of The Letter, the extraordinary William Wyler film starring Bette Davis.  This version transplants the action from rubber farms in the Maylay Peninsula to suburban Los Angeles just after WWII and puts Ann Sheridan in the lead.  None of that is a problem, and were The Letter not such a bombshell of a movie, The Unfaithful would shine brighter.  

Super Watch: Superman - Man of Tomorrow (2020)

Watched:  09/07/2020
Format:  Blu-Ray

Viewing:  First

Decade:  2020's

Director:  Chris Palmer

The best thing about a movie shouldn't be the trailer for an upcoming Batman Kung-Fu movie that happens to be on the disc you're watching.  

Watch Party Watch: Girls Just Want to have Fun (1985)

Watched:  09/04/2020

Format:  Amazon Watch Party

Viewing:  First

Decade:  so, so 1980's

Director:

Sort of like Teen Witch from roughly the same era, Girls Just Want to Have Fun (1985) feels a bit like the people putting it together didn't really know how to make a movie.  Or else they didn't have the money to do what they intended to do, which is probably evidenced by the lack of ability to license the Cindy Lauper version of the titular song of the movie.  

A very young Sarah Jessica Parker plays a Catholic High School girl who has just moved to Chicago.  She's moved around a lot, but is excited by this move as Chicago is the home of a very famous dance show she watches religiously, and she wants to try out to be ON the show as a regular featured dancer.  She immediately becomes besties with Helen Hunt, who is struggling to play rebellious and daffy and maybe punk?  But who dreams of being the "music news" portion of the show.

Anyway - there's a rich girl who is mean, a dopey looking biker guy who just wants to DANCE, and nuns.  Oh, and Jonathan Silverman playing an 80's-excess-loving entrepreneurial teen/ a dork.  

This is why 80's kids gravitated to John Hughes movies.  Even when they were maybe problematic or kind of hand-wavy when it came to stories, they felt competent, and the teens weren't just shrieking and running from place to place.  Parents were occasionally more than cardboard cut outs.  Kids have recognizable issues, like "I just want someone to like me" or "see me".  

But this movie has weird issues like being unsure if the main character lives in an apartment or house.  Her dad is so blandly written he feels like a goddamn monster, cowing daughter and wife.  And Helen Hunt is acting mostly through hair clippies.  

I dunno.  I am not a 10 year old girl in 1985, and that's who this was meant for.  

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

PODCAST: "Pride & Prejudice" (2005) - a Jamie Cinema Classic, w/ Ryan

Watched:  09/03/2020
Format:  Netflix
Viewing:  First
Decade:  00's
Director: Joe Wright

For More Ways to Listen


It's not all-genre-all-the-time at The Signal Watch! We jump on a literary classic translated to a very well received film from 15 years ago. We uncover Jamie's secret passion for this film, Ryan gets out of character discussing Jane Austen, and it's time to talk 19th-Century norms, fantasies that don't include being Batman, and much, much more!

The Signal Watch PodCast · 118: "Pride & Prejudice" (2005) - A Jamie Cinema Classic w/ Ryan

Music:

Dawn - Dario Marianelli, Pride & Prejudice OST
Mrs. Darcy - Dario Marianelli Pride & Prejudice OST


Jamie's Cinema Classics Playlist:

The Signal Watch PodCast · Jamie's Cinema Classics

Watch Party Watch: The Red House (1947)

Watched:  09/02/2020
Format:  Amazon Watch Party
Viewing:  First
Decade:  1940's
Director:   Delmer Daves

In a lot of ways, I'd categorize The Red House as "American Gothic".  The story has DNA in Jane Eyre and other books about recluses living with a mystery. 

The film stars Edward G. Robinson as a a farmer who keeps mostly to himself (he cohabitates with a niece and his sister, played by Judith Anderson of Rebecca fame).   His niece brings a classmate over to see if he can work the farm to assist Robinson, who is aging and can't do what he used to, especially as he has an artificial leg.  The teen is warned to stay away from some woods near the house, and not cut through them for an obvious shortcut.

In general - I liked the film.  It's got a sort of twisty mystery, and at least the female heroine was likable (jury is out on the male lead).  Robinson and Anderson are terrific, and Rory Calhoun is a lot of fun as a dick-swinging country boy after the male lead's girl (played by chanteuse Julie London, who seems like 10x too much woman for the male lead). 

Glad Jenifer chose it because I might have easily missed this one.

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.

PODCAST: "Showdown in Little Tokyo" (1991) - A SimonUK Cinema Series Episode (w/ Ryan)

Watched:  08/22/2020
Format:  Amazon Streaming
Viewing:  First, as it turns out
Decade:  1990's
Director:  Mark L. Lester

More ways to listen!


SimonUK and Ryan explore the 1991 film that brought Dolph Lundgren to the mean streets of LA's Little Tokyo as the ultimate Japanese man. It's action, mayhem, adventure and lots of nudity as Lundgren teams with the son of Bruce to take down the Yakuza before they something something protection racket/ sell pills in beer bottles. It's hard to say, but Tia Carrere is wrapped up in this mess, so you do have that going for you.

The Signal Watch PodCast · 117: "Showdown In Little Tokyo" (1991) - a SimonUK Cinema Series Selection (w/ Ryan)

Music:

Showdown in Little Tokyo - David Michael Frank


SimonUK Cinema Series Playlist!

The Signal Watch PodCast · SimonUK Cinema Series