Swashbuckle Watch: The Mark of Zorro (1940)

Watched:  08/26/2021

Format:  TCM on DVR

Viewing:  First

Decade:  1940's

Director:  Rouben Mamoulian

I'm fully down with the idea of Zorro.  Back in the 1970's and 80's, the character was still relatively popular as our parents had come up on Zorro movies and the Disney television show.  We got a cartoon and Zorro the Gay Blade.  I did watch some reruns of the Disney show, and in 1990 I watched the first season or two of Zorro on the Family Channel.  And, I quite liked the two Antonio Banderas/ Catherine Zeta Jones films.

Somehow I'd never watched this movie.  Ironically, I once owed dozens of dollars in late fees on the movie when I rented it in college and lost it in my apartment (it somehow got kicked under the bed), but I never got to see it before I found and returned it.  So, here we are.  

70's Thriller Watch: Klute (1971)

Watched:  08/18/2021

Format:  TCM on DVR

Viewing:  First

Decade:  1970's

Director:  Alan J. Pakula

In, I believe, 1996 the assistant manager at Camelot Records found out I was a film major.  

"Have you seen Klute?" she asked.

"No.  What is it?"

"Jane Fonda.  Donald Sutherland.  She's a hooker and he's a detective."

"Huh.  I'll need to check that out."

She'd check in weekly, really, to see if I'd seen it yet, and to be truthful, every time I went to rent it at I Love Video, it was checked out.  Or lost.  I didn't know, but it wasn't in.  But, yeah.

So, here we are, Jill.  25 years later, I finally watched Klute (1971).

Well, Klute is, actually, a very good movie.  Two thumbs up.  I dug it.  Nice, grimy pre-punk New York, Donald Sutherland nailing quiet intensity that I am sure made someone swoon.  Fonda maybe a little patrician for the role, but that's kind of the point, I think.  

Sutherland does play a private investigator, John Klute, searching for an executive who went missing a long time before.  The clues are scant, except for a letter that matches several that a call girl (Fonda) received, shortly after getting beat up by a john she barely remembers, one of a sea of faces.  

Noir Watch: Farewell, My Lovely (1975)

Watched:  08/09/2021

Format:  TCM on DVR

Viewing:  First

Decade:  1970's

Director:  Dick Richards

I've read the Raymond Chandler novel upon which Farewell, My Lovely (1975) is based a couple of times, and seen the Dick Powell-starring 1944 film adaptation Murder, My Sweet (1944) a handful of times.  I do appreciate the 1970's neo-noir movement and the adaptations or interpretations I've seen, but there's always such a layer of 1960's or 1970's-ness all over the films, you feel like they can't get out of their own way making sure you know "we have updated this for modern times".

This movie, however, is a period piece, adhering as close to the source material as possible, with a definite romanticism for the genre, the book and the movies which it inspired.  While some updating occurs, the politics of the 1970's are only thinly layered on, and the story does take place just prior to WWII (the novel was released in 1940), but with the not insubstantial casting choice of a 58 year old Robert Mitchum.  And, look, you'll never catch me saying a negative thing about Mitchum, but this may be about 15 years too old for the character, no matter who that actor is.  The script changes the novel enough to take Mitchum's age into account here and there, and I absolutely get why the filmmakers were thrilled to get him.  Mitchum would have been ideal casting for a production from '50-'57.  

Doc Watch: Chris Claremont's X-Men (2018)

Watched:  08/02/2021

Format:  YouTube

Viewing:  First

Decade:  2010's

Director:  Patrick Meaney

Chris Claremont didn't invent the X-Men, but he did turn them from a middling Marvel team book that could have/ should have disappeared into a sprawling mythology with beloved characters that became a multimedia franchise (that Disney is probably losing a lot of sleep over how to properly exploit).  Chris Claremont didn't introduce me to comics, but he did write comics that hit me like lightning, over and over again, and made me a devoted comics reader - a habit that has lasted 35+ years.

While everyone is still young and healthy, a documentary crew put together what is really a remarkable doc explaining what Claremont's X-Men was, why it was so unique in the world of comics, and what eventually broke it.  Including interviews from people who broke it, still totally unaware of what they did 25 years after the fact, still high on their own supply.

PODCAST: "Meatballs" (1979) - a Signal Watch Canon Episode w/ JAL and Ryan

Watched:  07/28/2021

Format:  Justin's backyard

Viewing:  First

Decade:  1970's

Director:  Ivan Reitman

For more ways to listen

JAL and I have some margaritas, watch a movie outside and then record a podcast outside about a movie that takes place outside. It's maybe ground zero for what became a genre unto itself in the 1980's (the camp movie), and a subgenre of the "misfits vs. the preps" - but this one actually has some heart! And some great gags. Join us after a few margaritas and this will all make more sense. FAIR WARNING: this is the most wandering podcast ever recorded here at The Signal Watch.

The Signal Watch PodCast · 155: "Meatballs" (1979) - a Canon Film watch w/ JAL and Ryan

Music:

Are You Ready For The Summer? - North Star Camp Chorus, Meatballs OST

Meatballs - Rick Dees, Meatballs OST

Signal Watch Canon:

The Signal Watch PodCast · The Signal Watch Canon

Thriller Watch: Cause for Alarm! (1951)

Watched:  07/27/2021

Format:  Noir Alley on DVR

Viewing:  First

Decade:  1950's

Director:  Tay Garnett

Much like Beware, My Lovely, also written by Mel Dinelli, Cause for Alarm! (1951) feels like it could have been a play just as easily as a film.  The action takes place in a very limited amount of time, in very few locations, and resolve not abruptly, but quickly and fairly completely (minus a body or two).  And, a very small cast.  I think there's maybe 8 characters with speaking parts, if that.

I try to keep up with Noir Alley on TCM anyway, but you can do far worse than Loretta Young as your star.  I'll categorize the movie as noir because, hey, Eddie Muller had it on his show, but like Beware, My Lovely, it feels more like a straight thriller than particularly noir, either from an aesthetic or thematic standpoint.  

PODCAST: "Black Widow" (2021) - An Avengers Countdown Episode w. Jamie and Ryan

Watched:  07/09/2021

Format:  Disney+ Premier Access

Viewing:  First

Decade:  2020's

Director:  Cate Shortland

For more ways to listen

Hey! We watched the latest installment in the ever-expanding Marvel media monolith! And we had so much to say, we came back and added a few more minutes to the end. Join us as we rush in to talk about our favorite Avenger from behind the iron curtain! It's a family affair as we meet the folks Natasha grew up with, and go home again to meet the world's worst sorority.

The Signal Watch PodCast · 154: "Black Widow" (2021) Avengers Countdown w/ Jamie and Ryan

Music:

Natasha's Lullaby - Lorne Balfe, Black Widow OST

American Pie - Don McLean

Marvel Movie Discussion

The Signal Watch PodCast · Avengers Chronological Countdown (w/ Jamie and Ryan)

Art House Watch: My Dinner With Andre (1981)

Watched:  07/22/2021

Format:  HBOmax

Viewing:  First

Decade:  1980's

Director:  Louis Malle

I would guess more Gen-X'ers know My Dinner With Andre (1981) by reputation than have actually seen the film, by a country mile.  Held up as the epitome of intellectualism in film by the time I hit film school in the mid-90's, I remember an art teacher in fifth grade (circa 1985) telling us about the movie, the same guy who also showed us Talking Heads videos, including what I think was Stop Making Sense.*  

As much of a reputation as the movie earned, it also became a sort of cultural shibboleth and punchline.   In the era of "Woody Allen is an intellectual genius" and last days of New York as the cultural epicenter for America (arguably shifting to LA by the late 1980's), the idea that a film would take on such heady topics as the nature of performance and theater, and, in fact, consciousness with a bent that's new-agey post-hippie "awareness" dressed up in tweed and fine dining was like pushing every button for the culture, especially in outposts outside of New York that longed to see themselves embroiled in such conversations.  Of course it played well to both the audience it portrayed and the audience of art-majors and film critics across the country.  That's not a dig - I'm just not surprised.

Murder Watch: The Last of Sheila (1973)

Watched:  07/20/2021

Format:  TCM on DVR

Viewing:  First

Decade:  1970's

Director:  Herbert Ross

What a weird combo of talent on this film.

I recorded this on my DVR when Rian Johnson indicated it had helped inspire the sequel to Knives Out, recently filming in the French Riviera, where this film, The Last of Sheila (1973), takes place.  

I did not know that it was written by Stephen Sondheim and Anthony Perkins - two guys not known for Hollywood movie scripts.  Then, it was directed by Herbert Ross, who you may know as the director of The Secret of My Success or Footloose.  The cast is small, but as in Agatha Christie style, everyone has to carry their weight.  

But what a cast:  James Coburn as a movie producer, Dyan Cannon as a talent agent, James Mason as a director past his prime, Raquel Welch as a starlet with a past, Ian McShane as her iffy boyfriend, Richard Benjamin as a screenwriter seeing his career fail, and Joan Hackett as his heiress wife.

The titular Sheila dies in the opening scene, the victim of a hit-and-run as she drunkenly leaves a party to walk her Bel-Air neighborhood.  A year later, Coburn invites a handful of the attendees to his yacht in the South of France for a week of games, one of which is a game of his own making.

I won't say anything else.  No spoilers.  But the movie is a murder mystery with more twists than an industrial drill.

Go check it out sometime.  

Disney Watch: Raya and the Last Dragon (2021)

Watched:  07/18/2021

Format:  Disney+

Viewing:  First

Decade:  2020's

Director:  

Don Hall
Carlos López Estrada
Paul Briggs
John Ripa

I had very much wanted to see Raya and the Last Dragon (2021) in the theater.  Disney and Pixar are creating big-screen-worthy films left and right, and I already have two Pixar films under my belt since December that I will see if they're re-released post-COVID.

For some time, Disney has been making Princess movies from all over the planet, from Frozen, to Moana, to Tangled and now Raya and the Last Dragon.  I admit to some confusion in this film because the film skips around a wide swatch of Southeast Asia and the various islands and archipelagos, but it's all Disney Fantasy Land, so I think marrying yourself to any particular culture here is as useless as figuring out which Scandinavian country where Frozen takes place.  But, nonetheless, you may find yourself saying "is this Vietnam, or Thailand, or...?"

Anyway, I was surprised in a very good way that RatLD turned out to be an action/adventure picture - really the first in the modern Disney era.  Expect no song and dance sequences - this is a straight adventure where the Maguffin is "friendship".  Because Disney.  But, yeah, Disney has definitely done non-musical movies in recent years with the Wreck-It-Ralph movies, Zootopia and Big Hero 6, but if you see "princess" and think "what is her 'I Want' song?", you will be disappointed.

Neo-Noir Mitchum Watch: The Friends of Eddie Coyle (1973)

Watched:  07/16/2021

Format:  TCM on DVR

Viewing:  First

Decade:  1970's

Director:  Peter Yates

I've been hearing about this one for a while, and I can see why.  Mitchum was in a weird period here where he was far older than in his prime two decades earlier, but his age and everything he'd done to himself for his adult life comes with him when he shows up in a role.  Add in his bona fides as part of the noir movement and his already naturalistic (if swaggerish) acting style, and he fits into the era well.  That said, I've not seen his outings as Marlowe, so that's soon, I think.

It's funny, I've definitely had the same thoughts that I saw reflected in this article from The Ringer that I read yesterday about the 1990's neo-noir movement.  Particularly the thought that resonated was that the 1990's noir movement had as much or more to do with filmmakers of the 1990's wanting to make movies like they grew up with in the 1970's than it had to do with anyone wanting to remake Kiss of Death (which they did, and is not the original, but it's fine).  And, likewise, the filmmakers of the 1970's using noir tropes to say something about the same world that insisted on Donnie and Marie.

Neo-Noir Watch: Remember My Name (1978)

Watched:  07/13/2021

Format:  TCM Underground on TCM

Viewing:  First

Decade:  1970's

Director:  Alan Rudolph

Into it.  

A late 1970's sorta-thriller where the viewer slowly puts the pieces together as you watch a clearly broken woman arrive in LA and then target a couple who don't seem to know her.  

Remember My Name (1978) stars Geraldine Chaplin (daughter of Charlie) as an ex-con who seems a bit off, even for the actions she's taking.  Frankly, Chaplin is pretty great here, working in a sort of breezy, Altman-esque manner (Altman produced the film).  Weirdly, Chaplin is still wildly prolific, but is working in corners that means I just haven't seen her in much - and didn't know who she was when I did see her.  

Watch Party Watch: The Creeping Flesh (1973)

Watched:  07/12/2021

Format:  Amazon Watch Party

Viewing:  First

Decade:  1970's

Director:  Freddie Francis

I had no expectations whatsoever of this film, but figured it might be okay as it co-starred Peter Cushing and Christopher Lee.  Anyway, The Creeping Flesh (1973) is not a Hammer Horror film, but feels like a sister film to The Horror Express.  

Why, Signal Watch? you may ask.  Well, dear reader, this movie is about bringing the remains of an unknown being from New Guinea into someone's house and then shit gets weird/ scary.  That movie is about a scientist moving the remains of an unknown being from China to Europe via the Trans-Siberian Express and, in transit, shit gets weird/ scary.  

This one has a very different take - possibly including a form of evil that's a literal virus with very pronounced flagella.  Also, a crazy daughter.   Add in Lee as an amoral scientist/ custodian of an insane asylum, and a frazzled Cushing as a gentleman scientist, and...  there's nothing not to like.  

Noir Watch: Guilty Bystander (1950)

Watched:  07/11/2021

Format:  TCM Noir Alley

Viewing:  First

Decade:  1950's

Director:  Joseph Lerner

I had absolutely no idea what Guilty Bystander (1950) was, and it sounds like the making of the film is film-worthy in and of itself.  I've seen enough low-budget films from the 1950's to recognize one when I see one, and it's positively weird to see Zachary Scott - five years earlier in blockbuster Mildred Pierce - and Faye Emerson, now married to American royalty, trying to save a picture through force of will and acting when the story is a mess and sometimes a scene just drones on for minutes past its expiration date.  

Weirdly, it also has some fascinating stuff!  Zach Scott plays an ex-cop who was maybe sliding toward alcoholism (as the very real Zach Scott was doing) when he made a mistake and decided to quit the force.  Which led to him leaving the very-together Faye Emerson, who you think would have gotten his straightened out if he'd stuck around.  She's tough, man!  Anyway, now he's a hotel detective in a hotel that seems like it can't afford a desk clerk, let alone a detective.  But mostly he just drinks.  Until Faye Emerson comes and gets him to tell him his son has been... taken?  Disappeared?  Anyway, he's not home.

Scott then basically tries to stay sober through the film, and it's kind of weird and depressing to watch as he sometimes does have a drink and people give him drinks knowing they shouldn't.  It's kinda heavy.

But it's also a mess of a movie that doesn't make a ton of sense, has some wildly convenient happenstances, and sometimes just refuses to agree that a scene is over or should change camera angles.  I cannot imagine what chips were cashed in to get Sam Levene for his scene as Scott's former cop colleague, but they clearly only had him for a few hours, because... in many movies, they change camera angles.  But I always like Sam Levene popping up.  

Neo-Noir Heist Gangster Watch: No Sudden Move (2021)

Watched:  07/08/2021

Format:  HBOmax

Viewing:  First

Decade:  2020's

Director:  Soderbergh

I'm not going to bother with a plot summary for this one.  It's too twisty-turny, and anything I'd say would spoil the damn thing.  Plus, I want to watch it again almost immediately.

What is weird is that I've never not thoroughly enjoyed a movie by director Steven Soderbergh, but I also don't seek them out.  I've maybe seen 1/3rd or less of his output in film, and pretty much zero of his television (I did watch the first season of The Knick), but - I'll rewatch the movies when they're on and basically acknowledge I like his stuff.  

And this movie is no exception.  

Released directly to HBOmax in this year of 2021 as WB wades through the echoes of the HBOmax launch, COVID and whatever the AT&T execs thought were swell ideas before realizing "oh, damn, we don't know what we're doing and we keep setting the place on fire" with WB and dumping it... this one is easy to access if you've already got your HBOmax subscription - so go watch it.  No, seriously.

No Sudden Move (2021) stars a dozen people you know and like, and you'll grow to know and like a few more along the ways (this film was a reminder to go back and watch Uncut Gems to see Julia Fox in another project).  

Don Cheadle, Del Toro, David Harbour, Jon Hamm, Brenda Fraser, Kieran Culkin, Ray Liotta and Signal Watch fave Bill Duke.  And dozens and dozens more.  Standouts in an amazing cast include Amy Seimetz as Harbour's wife and young Noah Jupe as his teen son.  

What starts as a gangland picture becomes a heist picture, and all with a twinge of noirishness to it, more for some characters than others.  There's no small amount of commentary baked into the movie, so be ready for that - including the conflicts between ethnicities and races in 1950's Detroit - echoing through clearly to 2021.  It moves at a hell of a clip for a 2 hour film, and it's hard to know at the outset what's important and what's not - but assume it's all important.  Like most Soderbergh movies, it's satisfying because it uses all the parts of the animal in the stew.  

In an era where actors bemoan somehow having two Marvel movies per year means they can't get work or there's nothing else happening - it is a welcome change to see Soderbergh show up with his stock players and put on another show, even if it's not on the big screen.  

There's some technical choices made I have questions about, and I'm curious about, and we can discuss at some future date, but it was enough to make me wonder if I screwed up the settings on my TV.  

Anyhoo.  No Sudden Move is excellent.  I have no notes for the cast and crew.

And I have a question for anyone who wants to take the discussion offline.

PODCAST: "Midsommar" (2019) - a Signal Watch Canon Episode w/ AmyC and Ryan

Watched:  07/03/2021

Format:  Amazon Prime Streaming

Viewing:  First

Decade:  2010's

Director:  Ari Aster

For more ways to listen

AmyC and Ryan delve into the 2019 horror film that really gets into the end-result of people dressing too matchy-matchy and insisting on group activities. It's a slow burn of a film with a lot worth talking about, from amazing visuals to the unique presentation of horror elements to why it fits in our Co-Contributor Canon. Let's all take a break and not push hard enough to find out what folks are putting in the meat pies.

The Signal Watch PodCast · 151: "Midsommar" (2019) - a Signal Watch Canon Episode w/ AmyC and Ryan

Music:

Prophesy - Bobby Krlic, Midsommar OST

The Sun Ain't Gonna Shine (Anymore) - Frankie Valli

Canon Playlist:

The Signal Watch PodCast · The Signal Watch Canon

Food Watch: Chef (2014)

Watched:  07/03/2021

Format:  Amazon Prime (I think.  Jamie dialed it up.)

Viewing:  First

Decade:  2010's

Director:  Jon Favreau

Chef (2014) is a terrific little film, not too hung up on being more than light entertainment with a bit of grounding in mid-life crisis and family issues.   And, of course, the whole thing is kind of meta.  

Starting as a kind of wunderkind responsible for writing and starring in Swingers back in '96, Favreau had been working on bigger and bigger films, not least kickstarting the Marvel Universe by directing, starring in and otherwise producing the Iron Man films (at pre and post-Disney Marvel).  But if the movie is about a guy who works at a well-respected LA bistro, losing touch with his son and after the divorce from his wife (a very good+funny Sofia Vergara), and certainly in a rut professionally - one can see how Favreau might have come to a story about a guy who felt like he needed to get back to the basics of what he loved in the first place.  

In the film, he accidentally starts a twitter-war with a famed food reviewer that... escalates.  Favreau has to do what Rocky's of all types have always done - go back to where it started and find the passion again.  Unfortunately for me, that starting over looked awesome, and I was starving while watching the movie.

Neo-Noir Watch: Night Moves (1975)

Watched:  07/03/2021

Format:  Criterion Channel

Viewing:  First

Decade:  1970's

Director:  Arthur Penn

46 years on, it's curious to watch a movie that was doing 1970's meta-commentary on hard-boiled detective stories of the 20's - 1950's in books and movies (and radio and early TV),  and know that we're about as far from 1975 as Night Moves was from the earliest Black Mask detective stories.  We've also processed and analyzed the 1970's movie era as much as any as directors leveraged the 1960's collapse of the studio system to tell stories TV could not, carrying with them the cynicism of the era.  

The obvious comparison is to The Long Goodbye, based on one of the final Chandler-penned Philip Marlowe novels.  But while that book was a metacommentary on... any number of things even in its 1950's release window and lended itself naturally to a 1970's adaptation, Night Moves exists in our world, in which everyone knows who Sam Spade is from the books and whatnot, and makes jokes about detectives thinking they're heroes of those books.*

Watch Party Watch: Vegas in Space (1991)

Watched:  06/28/2021

Format:  Amazon Watch Party

Viewing:  First

Decade:  1990's

Director:  Phillip R. Ford

This was a Jenifer pick for a watch party, and it was a gd delight.

Filmed circa 1983-85 in apartments and a few borrowed locations in San Francisco, this sci-fi epic follows a group of agents of the Empress of the Galaxy who are sent to Vegas in Space, a pre-fab pleasure planet with an all-female population, to find out what's going on with a crime wave.  To infiltrate the planet, the agents have to change genders and pose as a girl-group performing 20th Century showgirl routines. 

It's probably best to mention - the movie was made on no-budget by a group of drag queens and their friends, and the story of the making of the film sounds like it'd be a hell of a film or prestige HBO mini-series itself.

For something shot by people with minimal experience, it's a surprisingly coherent film, with ideas thrown at the screen every few seconds, tons of wild visuals only someone without proper training would even think of (apparently meth is also a bit of an engine behind the film), and characters with an ocean liner's worth of presence, if not acting chops.  I expected to have some good laughs at the attempt and the "let's put on a show" aspect of the movie, but instead...  the movie just worked.  It's insane, high-voltage camp, and tragically ahead of what I think America was ready for.  I mean, it's really funny, good stuff.

While watching the film, make sure you listen to the ADR'd background chatter.

PODCAST: "Trancers" (1984) - A Sci-Fi Film Chat w/ SimonUK and Ryan

Watched:  06/25/2021

Format:  DVD (Full Moon)

Viewing:  First

Decade:  1980's

Director:  Charles Band

For more ways to listen!

SimonUK and Ryan are back (in time) to discuss a cult classic of 1980's horror sci-fi. It's time-travel, zombiefication, cults, iffy future governing structures and the promise of everyone in Los Angeles getting an ocean view. So join us as we do some detective work on not just the film, but that it survives with a cult audience all these years later!

 

The Signal Watch PodCast · 150: "Trancers" (1984) - a Sci-Fi podcast w/ SimonUK and Ryan

Music:

Trancers Opening - Trancers OST, Phil Davies & Mark Ryder

Confrontation on the Roof - Trancers OST, Phil Davies & Mark Ryder

Playlist:

The Signal Watch PodCast · SimonUK Cinema Series