Pixar Watch: Luca (2021)

Watched:  06/26/2021

Format:  Disney+

Viewing:  First

Decade:  2020's

Director:  Enrico Casarosa

Sometimes when I see a Pixar movie, I'm pretty sure I'll need to watch it one or two more times before I can do anything but say "wow, that was amazing".  Luca (2021) is one more Pixar movie to elicit this response from me, and, once again, it gets a "wow" on every level.  Story, design, music... you name it, this movie hits all the buttons.  

Not every Pixar film has done this for me, but certainly Soul and Luca were sorely needed movies for my brain here over the past year.  While Soul spoke to me, now, as an adult, and my concerns about "what the hell, exactly, am I doing with my life?", Luca was both a reminder of the value of pushing boundaries that we did as kids as we looked beyond our own yards for what else was out there, and as an adult - maybe that same need continues to exist?  Even when people just want to protect us?

By now you've likely seen the trailers - and while I was dazzled by the look and feel I saw, I wasn't sure what the story would be, or if there would be enough story.  One of my criticisms of other animation or kids' film efforts is that they become too fixated on gags and easy laughs and character and story just feels recycled and that, in turn, makes the jokes a little hacky.

Luca avoids the trap, and tells the story of two boys from under the sea who come to land, and a small port town in coastal Italy where they dream of obtaining a Vespa and riding off into the sunset to explore the world.  A world neither knows a dang thing about - one because he's a sheltered homebody, and the other a stray, abandoned and playing it safe on his island, thinking he's got it sorted out.  

Soon, a new friend starts opening doors for them, gets them involved in a triathlon, and a hunt for sea monsters ensues.  I ain't spoiling anymore.

I'm hoping to grab Ryan M again and do a podcast on Luca soon, so I can ask about making the movie in the pandemic, and then gush about the design of the film, from character (which is very non-Disney) to the town to the underwater sequences to the dream sequences... but first I need to get in touch with the guy.  So, maybe?  Soonish?  In the meantime, go watch Luca.  

Crawford Watch: Above Suspicion (1943)

Watched:  06/26/2021

Format:  TCM on DVR

Viewing:  First

Decade:  1940's

Director:  Richard Thorpe

A mid-WWII propaganda picture, Above Suspicion (1943) is also the last film she made with MGM before severing ties with the studio, where she'd starred for 18 years.  

I'm honestly not clear on Fred MacMurray's star power in 1943, but Conrad Veidt, Reginald Owen and Basil Rathbone as supporting performers does give a notion of the high-caliber of the film at the time of the release.  And, frankly, the sets, size of the crowds of extras and more suggest MGM planned to make some money while also revving up their audience against Nazis.*

Watch Party Watch: From Justin to Kelly (2003)

Watched:  06/25/2021

Format:  Amazon Watch Party

Viewing:  First full and complete watch of the movie

Decade:  the worst of the 00's

Director:  Robert Iscove

what to say...?

Well, here is what I had to say about the movie before we watched it, having had once caught a good part of it on cable.  Maybe all of it.  I can't remember.

Back around 2002, a show debuted on American television that would introduce the nation to its first not-pleasant gameshow personality, Simon Cowell. That show was American Idol, a program which has left a string of forgettable personalities and the occasional dead body.

 
The two finalists of the first season got recording deals, and a movie. Why a movie? When you're plucking nobodies from nowheresville who were the third best singer in their high school choir and live in their parents' basement? I have no idea. But the end result will also have you saying: what the @#$% is this @#$%ing movie?

That @#$%ing movie is From Justin to Kelly (2003), a singularly terrible film-like-thing that manages to be bad in a way that is hard to describe/ quantify/ explain. It sets its bar as low as any fradulent cash-in, and yet, somehow, manages to dig below that bar and far into the Earth's mantle.

It's a musical! It's a horny college spring break film! It's shot entirely through filters! It's not even trying to hide the fact these people can't act. It has a script seemingly drafted by a man who is probably estranged from his adult children, but who still likes to hang out in places young women frequent so he can comment upon them to young males, like he's one of them, making the young men very uncomfortable.

Because no one ever leaves showbiz, Justin is now "Lil Sweet" in Diet Dr. Pepper Commercials, and somehow Kelly Clarkson simply continues to insist on being an incredibly successful fixture for people with tastes best described as "very basic".

All of this is true.

Swingin' Spy Watch: The Silencers (1966)

Watched:  06/23/2021

Format:  TCM on DVR

Viewing:  First

Decade:  1960's (so very, very 1960's)

Director:  Phil Karlson

Thanks to a misfire of the Google Fiber TV television schedule - I've found it.  The most 1965-1968 movie ever made.

This is the second movie I've recorded by accident while trying to watch a recording of The Kissing Bandit as part of the Cyd Charisse month-long retrospective.  Last time I'd accidentally recorded Singin' In the Rain, and this time...

I'd heard of The Silencers (1966) a while back, but never stumbled across it or had reason to watch it.  It was always lumped in with movies that influenced Austin Powers about 30 years after this film arrived (and we're now almost as far from Austin Powers as this was from that!  WOW, are we getting old).  It stars Dean Martin as a sort of super-spy in a made-up NSA-type agency called "ICE".  

Joan Watch: Queen Bee (1955)

Watched: 06/22/2021

Format:  Amazon Watch Party

Viewing:  First

Decade:  1950's

Director:  Ranald MacDougall

Jenifer was good enough to host a watch party this evening and selected Queen Bee (1955), a film from Joan Crawford's mid-40's to mid-50's cycle.  

I'd label the movie as a "Southern Gothic Melodrama", and I wouldn't be shocked to see it pop up on Noir Alley, either, but not til we've exhausted other films like Flamingo Road, which fits the bill better.   I genuinely enjoyed the film, in part because it's so bonkers and done with complete sincerity as Crawford manipulates everyone around her in a grand old house in small-town Georgia.  

The film co-stars Barry Sullivan and John Ireland, but our POV is the young cousin of Crawford played by Lucy Marlow, who arrives after her schooling to be a sort of companion/ secretary to Crawford.  But I just figured out the woman playing one smaller role was Fay Wray, aged 48 or so.  Mind officially blown.

You can't not comment on the fact that Crawford was 50 or older when the movie was filmed and is still playing a woman who is probably supposed to be no older than 35.  I can never think of anyone who pulled this sort of thing off in the studio-era for as many movies in a row who wasn't Mae West.  But casting contemporary Wray against her as a former rival for the affections of Barry Sullivan, is no mean feat.  And, look, it's not a criticism.  Crawford's make-up was more a problem by 1955 than the actual aging process, and in some shots and in some entire films from the era, it works.  Crawford herself is no less powerful an actress, and one wonders if she dialed it back how she might have appeared (although her hair in this film is the tight perm of the mid-50's that did few women any favors). 

But, yeah, it's a tidy 100-or so minutes of Crawford wreaking all sorts of havoc upon her own family and their lovers.  It's got some outstanding dialog, terrific cinematography (Charles Lang), and you can't outguess the movie as it unfolds.  

 

Shark Watch: Jaws 2 (1978)

Watched:  06/21/2021

Format:  Amazon Streaming

Viewing: First

Decade:  1970's

Director:  Jeannot Szwarc

I've seen the original Jaws probably 20 times, but as part of my day waiting for the AC repairman, and as yesterday was the 46th anniversary of the release of Jaws, I figured... maybe give that sequel a spin?

Jaws 2 (1978) arrived 3 years after the original, and had some of the band still in place.  Scheider and Lorraine Gary reprised their roles, as well as Murray Hamilton as Mayor Vaughn, our canary in the coal mine that politicians don't actually have to worry about disasters or deaths they cause through incompetence so long as people refuse to ever admit maybe the voted for the wrong person.  

Screenwriter Carl Gottlieb is back, as well as the same producers David Brown and Richard Zanuck.  Even John Williams.

But, yeah, it's not Spielberg.  Instead we got Jeannot Szwarc, who you may say:  what else did he do?

Musical Watch: The Harvey Girls (1946)

Watched:  06/21/2021

Format:  TCM on DVR

Viewing:  First

Decade:  1940's

Director:  George Sidney

So, I recorded this one as part of the Cyd Charisse "Star of the Month" retrospective on TCM, and while I have been waiting for the AC repair guy to call me back (it's 100 today in Austin), I put the movie on.

I'd always heard the name of the film The Harvey Girls (1946), but didn't know anything about the movie - just that it was a big, 1940's-style musical with Judy Garland as the lead.  I assumed it was about a group of sisters in the Harvey family.  Nope.

Pam Grier Watch: Friday Foster (1975)

Watched:  06/20/2021

Format:  TCM on DVR

Viewing:  First

Decade:  1970's

Director:   Arthur Marks

Friday Foster (1975) comes late in Pam Grier's starring roles in the "blaxploitation" cycle of films.  Curiously, it's also based on a comic strip that ran from 1970-74, which I plan to track down.  But - as you can see by the release date on the movie, the strip was defunct by the time the movie arrived.

From what I saw on the internet, the strip and movie had some things in common, but reversed the course of Friday's career - making her start as a model and wind up as a photographer/ reporter for Glance Magazine.  

Shudder Watch: Psycho Goreman (2020)

Watched:  06/19/2021

Format:  Shudder

Viewing:  First

Decade:  2020's

Director:  Steven Kostanski

It's been a minute since I posted.  We had guests for the first time since COVID, and we've been watching a lot of baseball and Ted Lasso, so no movies of late.

It seems Psycho Goreman (2020) is a bit of a cult favorite at the moment among horror aficionados, and I was looking for something fun to watch on my Friday night.  But aside from "sorta like an 80's family movie", "sci-fi alien" and "hilarious", I didn't really know much about it, which is my preference going into most horror.

And, yeah?  It's horror-ish.  Horror adjacent.  Sci-fi.  Comedy.  Something.  

Ghost Watch: Extra Ordinary (2019)

Watched:  06/12/2021

Format:  Google Play Streaming

Viewing:  First 

Decade:  2010's

Directors: Mike Ahern, Enda Loughman

A supernatural comedy with an utterly specific and terrific tone, Extra Ordinary (2019) is an Irish comedy about a psychic who'd rather she wasn't, who has chosen a dull existence as a driving instructor until a confluence of events pull her back into the ghost-wrangling work she once performed with her father.

The movie co-stars Will Forte playing an incredibly Will Forte character of a former one-hit wonder and practicer of the Dark Arts who finds himself crossing paths with Rose Dooley, our ghost-wrangler.  

I'm realizing this movie is very hard to talk about without littering the post with spoilers, so just bookmark the movie or add it to your "will watch" column for some night when you need a light, goofy comedy.  

 

Musical Watch: In the Heights (2021)

Watched:  06/10/2021

Format:  HBOmax

Viewing:  First

Decade:  2020's

Director:  Jon M. Chu

A few years back, Jamie and I paid our money and saw a local stage production of In the Heights at the Zach Scott Theatre here in town.  It wasn't a touring show, but it was a professional show with a mix of local talent and hired talent from out of town.  The theater in question struggles, I think, because the audience is on the gray and silver side, and bringing in shows with a hip-hop tinge, or something like Hedwig (which we also saw there) seem to throw off the audiences that still pat themselves on the back for coming in for the Janis Joplin show they do there about three years.  

But the show was solid, not least because the actual source material is what it is.  In the Heights was the work that made Lin Manuel Miranda in the musical theatre world and enabled him to do something as ambitious as Hamilton.  And, I don't think I need to tell you a ton about where that carried him.  

The movie of In the Heights (2021) was supposed to be released summer of 2020, I believe, but was shelved until this summer, and is now enjoying both a theatrical release and a release on HBOmax.  

X-Watch: The New Mutants (2020)

Watched:  06/09/2021

Format:  HBOmax

Viewing:  First

Decade:  2020's

Director:  Josh Boone

So, way, way back when in the long ago of the mid-80's, I picked up either my first New Mutants comic, or one of my first New Mutants comics, during the "Mutant Massacre" storyline that wove between the X-Titles and a few other comics.  Seeing a bunch of high school kids who were sneaking out and getting involved in the cataclysmic events of the storyline - and absolutely shook by what they saw - absolutely registered with me.  

I was a bit of a New Mutants fan for a few years, but (a) always knew I'd missed the truly weird beginning of the comic series of the actual students at Xavier's Academy, and (b) I became irritated enough with where the comic went post-Claremont that, at some point I wrote my first letter I intended to send in.  However, rather than send in something that was just a list of grievances, I decided "maybe I can just stop reading the comic instead", and did.  I was long gone by that final, Liefeld-fueled phase.

But I genuinely liked those characters, so I didn't want to give up on them when I did.  The New Mutants in the 80's were written as high school kids going through a very weird path to adulthood, but still very much teens.  They didn't have things sorted out, they behaved often like teenagers with petty outbursts, and generally had their own soap opera going on from month to month as they sorted through psychic powers, the death of a friend, and living in the shadow of the X-Men.  But, yeah, they dated, had a rival school they clashed with, and had complicated relationships with their families.

I've since read a collection of the issues that comprised The Demon Bear Saga from which the movie borrows, and it's some pretty good stuff.  Recommended.  

I'm not sure what to make of the movie of The New Mutants (2020).  

New Wave Watch: Breathless (1960)

Watched:  06/08/2021

Format:  TCM on DVR

Viewing:  First

Decade:  1960's

Director:  Godard

Sigh.  

Look, I don't dislike "New Wave" exactly, but the one time I watched a Godard movie previously it was so hilariously up it's own ass, it was pretty much unspoofable (for the record, it was Godard's King Lear).  

I've also been aware that thanks to Godard and his buddies, we even have the term "film noir".  They loved the same crime melodramas of the post-war period that I tend to enjoy.  They wrote about them and got people to think about that glut of crime movies in a different way.  

Teen Watch: High School Hellcats (1958)

Watched:  06/05/2021

Format:  TCM on DVR

Viewing:  First

Decade:  1950's (and how)

Director:  Edward Bernds

TEENS.

TEEN GIRLS.

TEEN GIRLS IN A GANG.

A gang that TRICKS YOU INTO WEARING SLACKS WHEN THAT IS STRICTLY AGAINST THE DRESS CODE.

High School Hellcats (1958) is part of the post WWII shock and awe that occurred when the Greatest Generation had their own kids, and since we were in our first real generation where kids weren't sent to a field or factory or married off at age 14, we accidentally invented "the teenager", and then, immediately, "the juvenile delinquent" when those teens used their free time and allowances to cause a ruckus by dancing to rock AND roll down at the soda fountain.

This movie is dumb as hell, following the dumber-than-a-bag-of-rocks protagonist/ heroine "Joyce" as she is moved to a new town.  Borrowing from Rebel Without a Cause (3 years earlier), Joyce's parents are distracted with lawyering and Bridge Club, and just want for her to behave, be home for supper and not date boys.  Also, pointedly, for a now kinda not exactly a slip of a girl to not run around the house in her underwear.  In truth, Joyce is a moron and a boor, so you kinda understand why dad wants her on a short leash.

She moves to a new school which is apparently segregated by gender, and she's immediately bullied into joining a gang called "The Hellcats", who seem to both seem hate her and insist on her membership and loyalty.  Yes, they neg her into joining.  Their big initiation is tricking her into wearing pants, which she isn't supposed to do.  When her teacher says "oh, yeah, we don't do that at this school.  Not a huge deal.  Do you have a skirt?" in tears she runs out of the school and seeks solace in the person of a local soda jerk who claims he's going to college and denies having any personal attachments, so he'll just focus on Joyce, thank you.  Entirely on Joyce.*

The gang is made up of some real winners and  insists Joyce get nothing higher than a "D" for a grade, and is otherwise obsessed with parliamentary procedure.  Joyce is all in.  If she's going to randomly decide who to people-please while acting shocked that anyone else has some pretty basic expectations of her as a human, throwing in with the down-slope of the bell curve is absolutely the way to a brighter future.

I'm not clear on what The Hellcats existed to do.  There's no organized crime, there don't seem to be threats of violence from which Joyce needs protection  - except the Hellcats themselves, and then it seems like telling a teacher or principal "hey, those girls just threatened me.  Is this normal?" would start the needed conversation.  We're told the school is crawling with gangs, but...  it's not apparent this is true or why or what for.  So, in the manner of all people searching for a reason to exist when there is none - they really do get hooked on their internal rules.  And as we all know, nothings says "rebel" like coming up with new and arbitrary rules!

Look, this movie is prime quality MST3K/ RiffTrax/ Friday Watch Party material.  At the same time, knowing how sneaky and dumb high schoolers can be (and more than occasionally homicidal), it's hard to say "oh, this is so unbelievable".  Y'all, if you told me all this was based on real events, I'd just say "yeah, okay.  Man, high schoolers are dumb."  Not all of them, but, you know, a LOT of them.  This is where we get dumb adults.  

I HIGHLY recommend High School Hellcats.  It's short, mind-bending, an absolute time-capsule, and shows what happens when you cross a second-banana who knows she's absolutely peaking before graduation.

Out of nowhere, it gets really dark really fast, and just gets darker from there as everyone on screen makes wildly stupid choices but which would make for a keen set-up for Season 2 of Mare of Easttown.

*it's a reminder that back in the day, anyone over the age of 14 was, apparently, fair game.  And why we have certain laws in place.  

SimonUK Watch: Dead Heat (1988)

Watched:  06/02/2021

Format:  DVD

Viewing:  First

Decade:  1980's

Director:   Mark Goldblatt

In 1987 or 1988, when this movie *should* have been aimed directly at me, I saw the trailer for Dead Heat (1988) and took a hard pass.  I never cared much for Joe Piscopo, and I can say I had no idea who Treat Williams was in 1988.  So, alive or dead, I didn't really care to see a buddy-cop comedy starring these two.

Mostly, I'd totally forgotten this movie existed until about two years ago when Simon suggested I watch it.  But I did remember it.  Joe Piscopo.  Cops.  One of them was dead.  Probably Piscopo.  

So, last night was the first time in a year or so Simon has been to our house for a movie night (hooray, vaccines!).  Si brought an assortment of films, but I decided finally watching this movie was a thing we should do.  

Look, Simon really, really likes this movie and was generous enough to share it with me.  And I will say this - it does have a bonkers final 20 minutes.  I liked the last 20 minutes.  

It is directed by the same guy who directed the 1989 Punisher movie that me and like 20 other people have ever seen.  But apparently he's an amazing editor.  Terminator 2 and other credits.  But, man, it just *feels* like a Corman movie as much or more than anything else that came out of New World Pictures in the late 80's.  

Anyway, Simon really likes this movie, and there's no reason for us to take a knock at it.

Musical Watch: Meet Me in Las Vegas (1956)

Watched:  06/02/2021

Format:  TCM on DVR

Viewing:  First

Decade:  1950's

Director:  Roy Rowland

Cyd Charisse is Star of the Month on TCM.  We're on record that Cyd Charisse is a pretty good idea in general, and so we're going to watch some of these movies we've not seen before (they're airing on Tuesdays in June).  

This one felt more or less like an excuse for a variety of talents and Vegas floor shows to do a little something here and there in a showcase tucked between the paper-thin story of a Vegas gambler/ rancher and a ballerina who meet and fall in love.  That ballerina is, of course, Charisse.  You won't know the gambler/ rancher.

But the movie also has Agnes Moorehead as an earthy ranchwoman, Jim Backus as a casino manager, George Chakiris as a young romantic, Paul Henreid as Cyd's manager, Frankie Lane as Frankie Lane, and... most exciting of surprises... Lena Horne as Lena Horne.  

It's... dopey and fine.  I don't love it.  Charisse is amazing in every one of her numbers, not the least of which is a "Frankie and Johnny" performance (with narration by Sammy Davis Jr.).  

Anyway, I wouldn't rush out to see it, but it's... fine.

Horror Watch Party: Burnt Offerings (1976)

Watched:  06/01/2021

Format:  Amazon Watch Party

Viewing:  First

Decade:  1970's

Director:  Dan Curtis

I liked this one!  A haunted house movie filmed in the country house I'm familiar with from A View to a Kill.  But Burnt Offerings is in the mode of haunted house film I quite like, from The Haunting to The Shining.  But maybe a lot more indirect than those films?

The cast is small, but contains Burgess Meredith (briefly), Bette Davis, Karen Black, Oliver Reed and Anthony James.  Also, the kid who grew up to become Jeff in Girls Just Want to Have Fun.  

I have also realized talking about the movie any more will spoil it, so I'm gonna shut up.

Inexplicable Watch: Tammy and the T-Rex (1994)

Watched:  05/30/2021

Format:  Shudder

Viewing:  First

Decade:  1990's

Director:  Stewart Raffill

Until very recently, in whatever spot in my brain that houses barely-remembered covers of VHS tapes from my college years, I had filed Tammy and the T-Rex (1994) as a children's movie.  It is NOT.  And I wonder how many parents put this on for their kids without realizing what it is.

I've seen it, and I can't tell you what it is.

Apparently the copy going around that I saw on Shudder is the original cut of the movie, which may have been seen in Italy.  The American version was cut down to PG-13, but this version is definitely an R for gratuitous gore.  This version's titles also insist this is "Tanny and the T-Rex".  I don't know if the word "Tammy" in Italian means something else or just sounded strange.  Or was a type-o.  I'd believe anything, because no one in this movie is trying.  It's not the kind of movie where people did try.

Horror Watch: Maniac Cop (1988)

Watched:  05/30/2021

Format:  Shudder

Viewing:  First

Decade:  1980's

Director:  William Lustig

Guys.  Guys.  Two guesses what this movie is about.

Catch-Up Neo-Noir Watch: Layer Cake (2004)

Watched:  05/28/2021

Format:  Amazon Streaming

Viewing:  First

Decade:  2000's

Director:  Matthew Vaughn

For a moment there, Britain was exporting some hip crime movies that Americans decided were a pretty good idea.  For a number of reasons, I missed Layer Cake (2004) when it hit the States in the summer of 2005.  And just never saw it afterwards.  Which is crazy.  We're Daniel Craig fans in this house.

It's a plot-heavy, occasionally cheeky gangster movie that served as an accidentally good pairing with The Brothers Rico, which I'd watched the night before.  Both films are about guys who are doing well enough in legitimate business that they want to leave the life behind them - but in Layer Cake, we aren't there yet.  We're just considering retiring after years packaging and selling cocaine in London when our nameless lead, played by Daniel Craig (and - it's clear this is the movie that inspired someone to give him Bond), gets pulled in as an errand boy by his boss, to find a missing girl and to broker a deal with a wild-card hoodlum who has a million hits of ecstacy he's stumbled into and is looking to sell.