Happy Birthday, Peter Cushing

Today marks the birth anniversary of English actor Peter Cushing.  Cushing was a familiar face to generations the UK, the US and across the world thanks to his starring roles on Hammer horror films, playing a truly demented Dr. Frankenstein across many films, a noble but crisp Dr. Van Helsing, Sherlock Holmes, and - of course - as Grand Moff Tarkin in Star Wars: A New Hope.  

Cushing has become one of those actors where I now say "Cushing is in that?  Well, let's watch it."  And I'm never disappointed in a single moment of him on screen.

He was also a very humble gentleman who came to fame in his 40's, and always seemed to have his feet on the ground.  Cushing was also quick to make friends with his co-stars and colleagues, and he worked numerous times with Christopher Lee, and befriended the likes of Vincent Price and others who were kings of the horror film world.  

I always find it intriguing that, in his downtime, Cushing made miniatures and models of all sorts of things.  

Anyway, happy birthday, Peter Cushing!  You are missed.

Happy Birthday, Myrna Loy

 

Today marks the 117th anniversary of the birth of Myrna Loy.  If you don't know Myrna Loy, I am happy to help you fix that.  She's the absolute best.  

Happy 75th Birthday, Arnold Schwarzenegger

Today marks the 75th birthday of Arnold Schwarzenegger - champion of physical culture, movie star, politician, and guy who lets hoofed animals into his house.  He's kind of everyone's weird uncle, and I respect that.

It's no secret that Arnie is one of my childhood favorite movie stars, and someone whose work I followed well into adulthood.  These days he's keeping busy with any number of acting gigs, promoting physical wellness and being an okay guy.  His occasional newsletter is always a boot in my ass to get out there and get my heart rate up, and his pointed messages to his fans about not being a heel are truly inspiring.  

I understand Arnie is a complex guy and has a checkered history.  So say we all.  But I also think he's using this chapter in his life to be the best version of himself, and I think that's worth acknowledging, too.  

Here's to Arnie!  May he curl some slices of cake today.

Here's some discussion of Schwarzenegger films we've covered on the PodCast!

The Signal Watch PodCast · Arnie Fest

Happy Birthday, Elizabeth Berkley Lauren

Well, well.  Someone else has a birthday today for us to celebrate. 

Y'all put on a second party hat for my high school TV crush and prime reason I watched the all-new Saved By the Bell (which everyone but me slept on, I think, but it was waaaay better than I expected), Ms. Elizabeth Berkley Lauren, seen above - reminding you she has a very nice black coat.

Here's hoping Ms. Berkley Lauren is having a smashing birthday.

And I hope someone watched that new Saved By the Bell to see she's developed her comedy chops since the 90's and would fit well in many a new show or movie.

Happy Birthday, Hannah Waddingham

Today marks the birthday of Emmy award winning actor, singer, performer, and all-around good idea, Hannah Waddingham.  Here's hoping she has a great one.

Happy Birthday, Lynda Carter

Happy Birthday to patron saint of The Signal Watch, Ms. Lynda Carter!

Just yesterday, I moved some stuff around and began putting all my Lynda Carter Wonder Woman stuff in one place.  I'm not done yet, so no pics.  But, as always, Ms. Carter was on my mind.  Just more so than usual.

Ms. Carter has had an extraordinarily tough year, losing both her husband and father. That's incredibly hard, and we wish her well.

But in recent months she's been active on social media and she's also released a new song, dedicated to her husband, Robert Altman.  It's a romance from Wonder Woman's POV - in both original flavor and dance remix.  And, she's set to participate in the next Wonder Woman film, which this blog endorses 1000%.  

Here's to Lynda Carter, and may she have spent the day with her family and friends.  

Happy Birthday, Debbie Harry

Today is the birthday of Debbie Harry, Queen of Pop Punk.  

I'm a Blondie fan and a Debbie Harry fan.  That's all I have to say about that lest I start to wax rhapsodic.  

She's the absolute best.

101st Anniversary of Jane Russell Existing

One-hundred-one years ago today, Ernestine Jane Geraldine Russell joined us on this weird orb flinging through the otherwise uncaring cosmos.  Her arrival and subsequent Jane Russell-ness was and remains a sign that maybe the universe isn't the meaningless void one might otherwise assume.  

Russell is still generally well remembered by the public, if for no other reason for most folks as a co-star in the classic Gentlemen Prefer Blondes.  But Russell was a major star in her own right.  She's a natural in front of the camera, a talented comedic and dramatic actress, can sing and dance, and was game for all sorts of scripts.  Paired with Robert Mitchum in a few films, she's met her equal and acting partner - I highly recommend the ill-titled His Kind of Woman, which is just a hell of a movie, and then move on to Macao.  

I'd highly recommend you check out her work some time.  

 

Judy Garland at 100

June 10th marked the 100th anniversary of the birth of Frances Ethel Gumm, who we all know as Judy Garland.  

Garland was a star from almost the time she could walk, and was a performer of stage and screen until her untimely passing just 12 days after her 47th birthday.  I am now older than Judy Garland ever was.

I would be very curious to know what the average person on the street thought of Garland during the 1940's til her death.  To put it mildly, her life was tumultuous.  And I am sure the movie magazines and gossip columns covered that, but most people couldn't have known much about her issues at work and at home.  She simply had to have been a given - she had been on screen since before The Wizard of Oz, and even if she disappeared for a while, she always seemed to return, whether it was television or stage shows.  

But the studios seemed literally cruel to her, in ways that anyone should share with their starry-eyed kids considering a career in show-biz, both in front of and behind the lens.  But in the end, though she's been gone for almost 53 years, she's still a draw, whether it's folks tuning in for Easter Parade or Meet Me in St. Louis or The Harvey Girls or Wizard of Oz.  A few people can name directors or studio chiefs, but folks will still stop to see what Garland is doing on screen.  

I don't know if it's a triumph or a tragedy.  But you also can't imagine movies without her.

Happy Birthday Kareem Abdul-Jabbar

As a kid, I was an NBA nut.  And because it was the 1980's, I watched the Lakers.  Chances were always good they were in the playoffs or the Finals.  But I watched them, the Pistons, the Bulls and the Rockets when I could (I would become a real Rockets fan when I moved back to Houston in 1990) all season long.  

I liked most of the guys you think of from that era, but my favorite Laker was always Kareem Abdul-Jabbar.   I made the crucial mistake of trying to imitate his play as a 6'3" kid, but I did play center and I wore glasses, and it all made sense in my head.  But my skyhook was not Kareem's skyhook.  And my defense was not his.

Of course, Kareem is one of the intellectuals of the NBA.  And that had an impact on me as a kid.  I understood that, like Muhammad Ali, he had abandoned his birthname of Lou Alcinder.  I understood why.  Those are both big things when you're a kid, but also helps frame it in a way that's understandable and something you're keen to appreciate when you know that's part of the story of someone you look up.  

I knew Kareem was a reader and a smart guy, and I have delighted in his post NBA career as a sort of wise elder.  I mean, no one is going to Bill Laimbeer or Dennis Rodman to get their take on current events.  They aren't writing excellent think pieces that show up in the news.  

If I met Kareem today, though, I'd probably just ask him about making The Fish that Saved Pittsburgh, and if he'd rewatched it lately.  

Anyway, I had a lot of sports heroes as a kid, but Kareem was always the top of the list.  

Its been wild watching the current series Winning Time about the people and forces that combined to become the Lakers you know and love, and to see Kareem dramatized by Solomon Hughes in a way that feels like maybe it could be right (but you'd have to ask the man himself).  

Anyway, happy 75th to one of the best in the game.  

PODCAST 193: "Chances Are" (1989) - a Birthday Exchange Movie Discussion w/ Jamie and Ryan

Watched:  04/10/2022

Format:  Amazon

Viewing: First

Decade:  1980's

Director:  Emilie Ardolino

For more ways to listen

NSFW! In retaliation for his selection, Jamie busts out a mostly-forgotten late-80's magical-realism romantic comedy that really draws some interesting lines in the sand for what it thinks are totally fine ideas to put into a movie. Thrill to Jamie and Ryan pondering how this was a mainstream movie that went without comment at the time.

SoundCloud 

The Signal Watch PodCast · 193: "Chances Are" (1989) - a Birthday Exchange Movie Discussion w/ Jamie and Ryan

YouTube

Music:

After All - Cher and Peter Cetera

Chances Are - Johnny Mathis

Jamie's Cinema Classics

The Signal Watch PodCast · Jamie's Cinema Classics

47

 "Needle"
Middle Kids

Dream wives pushing up their prices
Even though it's a dying trade
Cool hands sticking to their guns
Hoping it'll keep them safe

They're eyeing off each other
Hoping to discover the only needle in the hay
But the sun's gone down and they're feeling around
With palms stretched open skimming the ground
I was hoping that things were better since we're all so clever

Quick cash filling up the pockets
Of the most boring men in the room
Red lips, the promise of kisses
Whisper sweet nothingness

They're eyeing off each other
Hoping to discover the only needle in the hay
But the sun's gone down and they're feeling around
With palms stretched open skimming the ground
And you're sitting high above it
Modern comfort is always having something to say
And a million artists have come to this in the past years
Tired and hungry, laughing through tears
I was hoping that we'd feel better since we're all so clever

You look better in the spring
(The violins play the rite of it)
I see you ever considering
Packing up your things and driving into the sea

We're eyeing off each other
Hoping to discover the only needle in the hay
But the sun's gone down and we're feeling around
With arms stretched open skimming the ground
I was hoping that things were better
I was hoping that things were better
I was hoping that things were better since we're all so clever

Happy Birthday, Sterling Hayden

Yesterday marked the 106th birthday of reluctant movie star Sterling Hayden.

I don't think it's a huge surprise that I'll pick any of a number of female stars from the mid-20th Century as a perfectly good reason to watch a film, but the number of male stars who push a movie to the top of my watch pile is smaller.  Up at the top of that list is, and always will be, Sterling Hayden.

Hayden didn't seem to think much of acting, I guess, but it was how he made his living when he wasn't running off on a boat.  He has an insane war record that includes lying about who he really was (he wasn't famous yet) and winging up in the OSS where he was basically a Howling Commando.

In films, Hayden always plays someone reflecting his presence, but it's cops, thieves, cowboys, pirates and eventually General Jack D. Ripper in Dr. Strangelove.  He's better than he probably ever gave himself credit for, and while not every film he was in was a homerun, he was never the issue.

Anyway, if you haven't ever see a Sterling Hayden film (and you have, he's the policeman in The Godfather who Michael takes care of in the restaurant.  Spoilers, I guess.), I'm happy to suggest a few.

PodCast 190: "Showgirls" (1995) - A Day-Drinking Surprise Birthday Movie Exchange w/ Jamie and Ryan

Watched:  03/19/2022

Format:  BluRay

Viewing:  Second

Decade:  1990's

Director:  Paul Verhoeven

For more ways to listen

NSFW!!! This year for their birthdays, Jamie and Ryan are exchanging movies, but each will surprise the other with their selection. For Jamie's birthday, Ryan rolled out the martinis and 1995's most notorious camp-tastic hit in glorious NC-17 style. It's a wild world of the American Dream if your dream is to DANCE. Mine isn't, so this mostly seemed like it was trying very hard to make a point, but forgot what that point was multiple times along the way.

SoundCloud 

The Signal Watch PodCast · 190: "Showgirls" (1995) - A Day-Drinking Surprise Birthday Movie Exchange w/ Jamie and Ryan

YouTube

Music:

Vision Thing - Sisters of Mercy

Goddess - David A. Steward, Showgirls OST

Ryan's Random Cinema

The Signal Watch PodCast · Ryan's Random Cinema

Happy B-Day, Joanie!

Today is Joan Crawford's birthday!  Get out there and drink a Pepsi.

It's my Brother's Birthday!

Everyone wish my brother, the amazing Steanso, a terrific birthday.  

I started blogging way, way back in 2003, and back then, he was but a simple attorney who played a lot of GTA and the bass in a band.  Now, he's a respectable attorney, a family man, and drives a crossover SUV to keep the kiddies safe.  But he does still play the bass!

101 Years of Cyd Charisse

Today marks the 101st birthday of film star Cyd Charisse.  

Charisse is one of those people that - if you know *anything* about classic film, you're like "of course, Cyd Charisse".  If you don't know who she is, study up.  

I'll put my cards on the table and say, Cyd Charisse made quite an impression on me as a young film student.  An amazing dancer - maybe one of the five or so best I can think of in film, and seemingly with the most diversity in her dancing bag of tricks, Charisse was also not just movie-star gorgeous, but had a restrained sexiness that the studios deployed with as much taste as possible. 

She was a partner of choice for Gene Kelly, Fred Astaire and other giants, and it's no wonder.  Ballet, modern, whatever was needed for a sequence, she was there and making someone like Gene Kelly somehow look even better as a dancer.

Happy Birthday, Laura Dern

Happy Birthday to the one and only Laura Dern!  And, hey, they released the trailer for Jurassic World Dominion today.  So, our gift is more Dr. Ellie Sattler.  And that's never a bad thing.

Happy Belated Birthday to Ida Lupino

 

Yesterday was the birthday of film star, producer and director, Ida Lupino.  

She's in several amazing films, including a personal favorite, While the City Sleeps.  In the movie, she plays the fast-talking gossip reporter for a major newspaper, who wants to get with Dana Andrews (and does, somewhat on screen enough that you know offscreen the characters hooked up) but he returns to his pure as the driven snow girlfriend in the film's finish.  

Dana Andrews made a wrong choice.

you fool, Andrews.  

Happy Birthday, David Lynch

Happy birthday to David Lynch.