This week is Jane Russell's 101st birthday. Let's celebrate with a movie that lets Jane do all the things she does best! A little singing, some acting, some hanging out with Robert Mitchum, and definitely wearing dresses.
Anyway - if you like Robert Mitchum (and you should) and Vincent Price (who you definitely should like) and want to see mystery, romance, exotic locales, amazing wardrobe, Mitchum's super chill delivery, Russell's rad confidence and Price just Pricing it up... this is a great Friday night flick!
Day: Friday 06/24/2022
Time: 8:30 PM
Service: Amazon Prime
Cost: $3
Join us! Link will be live 10 minutes before showtime.
I can't and won't try to explain Streets of Fire, a not-a-musical that acts like one, produced by Joel Silver and lensed by action-director Walter Hill.
But... Join us for motorcycles, rock n' roll, crazy dialog, a fantasy make-believe-land of mid-century America that's weirdly violent, boroughs that each have their own musical theme, and which has no obvious sources of economy other than rockin' out, and a major, major gang problem!
If you dig the music of Jim Steinman (Meat Loaf, Bonnie Tyler), a weirdly cast Rick Moranis, and a 19 year old Diane Lane playing 27 or so - this is the movie for YOU.
I remembered really liking this movie, but not many plot details. What I really recall was that this was that age of post-Mildred Pierce Joan Crawford when she was having a second or third wind in Hollywood and back at the center of movies.
This one would be a fabulous bit of film for a good old-fashioned "gender in cinema" student paper, with a tough-as-nails female lead who still has to navigate the mid-20th Century gender and sexual politics and the less-than-ideal male figures around her. Not to mention the presentation of other women in the film who do not have the benefit of being Joan Crawford.
I don't really care what this movie is about. It stars Joan Crawford in her bangin' mid-40's, Sydney @#$%ing Greenstreet and Austin native Zachary Scott. I mean, if you can't like that, we are not friends.
But, if you've not seen it - Flamingo Road is a grimy melodrama in the American South.
Even as a kid, I had no real affinity for Krull (1983). It arrived as part of the fantasy movie blitz of the 1980's, and I didn't see it in the theater. The trailer had some interesting imagery, but I just didn't watch it. At some kid's birthday, I watched the Fire Mares part of the movie, said internally "what the @#$% is this?", but wasn't super interested. But, as a kid with time on his hands and a VCR, eventually I watched the film. However, most of my memories of the story itself are from a comic book adaptation I picked up somewhere. I think we only bought the first issue.
About 16 years ago, Columbia House was in its death throes and had moved into DVD's. I gave it a whirl and picked up 11 DVDs for $11 or whatever, and among my pickings was Krull. Jamie and I tried to watch it, and I decided "this is boring" and we didn't try again. On a rewatch, I am not sure why we thought it was boring. It's not. That's not really the crime to which the movie could be held accountable.
In fact, it's a very, very pretty movie. The sets are immaculate and gigantic. The exteriors are all over Europe in lovely pastoral settings. There's some truly fantastic visual stuff happening, and in a lot of ways, the movie is genuinely well-directed when it slows down to have a beat or two. The director, Peter Yates, is no slouch and did one of my favorite new-to-me films from the past few years, The Friends of Eddie Coyle, which could not be more different if Yates had physically been trying to get as far away from that movie as possible.
But, real talk, they kinda forgot to give anyone but the asshole wizard any personality beyond the thinnest layers atop an archetype. It's weird. There's an exposition guy who tells the "prince" what to do. The price is princely (read: nice but dim), and the wise old man is wise. The stoic cyclops is stoic. Perhaps because the actor cannot see and therefore cannot move.
Millennials seem to think Space Jam is a good movie because they watched it over and over on VHS as kids. They're wrong, and the movie is trash. Gen-X had Krull, HBO and no internet to keep them occupied.
Yeah, yeah. It's a 1980's sci-fi fantasy that feels like a lot of fun design work happened, but no one thought "hey, this script is not good. Also, our Cyclops is unnerving in a bad way." Also, there will be perpetual confusion of what, exactly, is a "Krull". And, no, it is not the spinny weapon. That's a glaive.*
A movie that actively resists how movies are supposed to work, American Cyborg: Steel Warrior (1993) eschews character, story, pacing, and more to tell the plot outline of a cute blonde carrying a jar-of-baby to a port to give it to Frenchmen whilst being stalked by a robotic gym coach. Luckily, she's saved by Unfrozen Caveman Hero Joe Lara.
The movie has exactly two modes: (1) uninspired fighting - 90% (2) awkward romantic moments - 10%.
It's a movie that is only 90 minutes, but somehow feels 4 hours long, because it has no story and thinks it should make up for that with the exact same fight sequence happening over and over and occurring in 10 minute spurts. It's insane.
Anyway, I hate it and want to eject it from my brain as soon as possible. So this write-up is over.
During summers and over Christmas while in college, I used to go see every single movie that came to the local AMC. I'm pretty sure the ticket girl thought I was stalking her because there I was, like 4 nights per week. And, as is my wont, I began addressing her by name.
But it wasn't just me lurking around the AMC at Richey Road. Back in those days, The Bros. Steans were very much a package deal (ask Jamie about a pre-Amy Jason), and so there we'd be, standing at the window, asking for two tickets to Man's Best Friend or whatever. And, one Christmas, we got down to the dregs of the holiday-time offerings.
With no Oscar bait on the table (this is just before they learned to dump all those movies in December, which would happen maybe the next Christmas), we chose American Cyborg: Steel Warrior.
The movie was absolutely terrible. To add to the experience, either the projector or film itself kept breaking. So every twenty minutes or so, the movie would stop, the lights would come up and a half-full very small auditorium of people would have to look at each other, acknowledging "yes, I also chose to watch something called American Cyborg: Steel Warrior". And, every time it broke, it was adding a few minutes onto the duration of how long any of us planned to be there, and we'd all shown up for a 10:00 PM show.
As it crept to about 11:15 and the movie broke yet again, I heard some real grumbling this time. And so, I stood, faced the crowd and said to people I had never seen before:
Oh, no. I know you're all thinking this movie is terrible, and, it is. But no one leaves. We started this together, and we're finishing this together. We can do this! Let's finish this awful movie!
People, I got applause.
Not a soul left that theater.
In retrospect, that may have been a terrible mistake.
And, Friday night, I share that mistake with you.
Starring people you don't know, one of the final films put out by Cannon while in its death throes, we're watching people run around an abandoned factory.
Good Friday? Let's make it a GREAT Friday, with the power of Halle Berry!
This is also a story about death and resurrection, but this one involves considerably more cats and milk. And if there's one thing I know, it's that y'all love cats.
Well, so does the hero of our film!
So, I have seen this movie in pieces over the years, but never straight through. It's time to fix that.
Jamie is already mad I picked it. Just FYI.
In 2004, with Marvel getting a successful X-franchise out there and some Spidey films, DC absolutely panicked and green lit Catwoman, based on no comic property, and loosely tied to about a 60 second bit in 1992's Batman Returns. This movie - directed by a mononymic French guy who knew nothing about Catwoman and had no real directing experience - is really the lens you need to understand how much WB did not give a shit about it's subsidiary, DC Comics, and how little they believed their characters were worth.
In all fairness, we do get 100 or so minutes of Halle Berry. And, of course, Sharon Stone!
In a lot of ways, Flash Gordon (1980) maybe came out at exactly the wrong time and set the tone for what would be a problem for comic-based material until X-Men in 2000.
With Star Wars and Superman released to critical and financial success, Dino De Laurentiis began mining the properties that had influenced the creation of both properties and set the tone in Hollywood that Marvel and DC couldn't get anything green lit for years - but somehow pulp characters would get movies.* As The Incredible Hulk and Wonder Woman disappeared from TV, Buck Rogers showed up on the small screen, and De Laurentiis went and tapped Lorenzo Semple, Jr., one of the main brains behind the 1960's Batman series, to bring Flash Gordon to the big screen.
FRIDAY. Join us as we watch himbo Sam Jones as Flash Gordon in the 1980's edition of a very 1930's idea.
It's interstellar chaos when the Moons of Mongo rain down natural disaster on Earth, but luckily we've got a football player, a lady and the guy from Fiddler on the Roof to challenge Max Von Sydow in what is a weird space twist on "The Yellow Menace". But Brian Blessed shows up in metal wings and a cool hat.
Also, young Timothy Dalton making knees shake.
This movie is famously bananas, and we think you'll like it. Sets that make no sense, music by Queen. A princess that's supposed to be kind of a bad guy, but you're like... okay, I'll join your side. Flying blind on a rocket cycle. There's just no end to the joys of this movie.
I watched Leprechaun the first time at a party during what I think was Christmas break 1993. I don't really remember much about it except for that the Leprechaun was a vicious dick and it featured Jennifer Aniston before I knew who she was.
It follows the same pattern as a lot of horror from that era, and this era. People are in a country house of some kind, and a dangerous force attacks. The house actually looks quite a bit like the house from Critters or five dozen other movies of the era. In this case, an Irish immigrant has returned home from a funeral and brought with him a bag of gold he stole from a leprechaun (Warwick Davis). Now in the Western United States, he rightfully assumes he's safe from a magical being an ocean away.
He's not, but he traps the leprechaun in a box for a decade until Jennifer Aniston and her dad show up to rent the house. The movie also features a "hunky guy" house painter for Aniston to latch onto, his kid brother and the guy who stole Pee-Wee Herman's bike playing a moron.
Let's get ready for St. Patrick's Day with a modern classic that launched a franchise and a frankly surprising number of imitators! See Warwick Davis in his, like, third of fifth most famous role! A just before Friends Jennifer Aniston! Be surprised at what a vicious POS a leprechaun can be!
Yes, I saw this, I think Christmas in 1993 after renting it from a gas-station.
So, get ready for getting ready for the, like, third drunkest holiday of the year!
Well, we're gonna do a watch party. And we're going to do a movie that holds a very special place in my heart. If there's one fictional character I wish I could be, and not fly around in a red cape, it may be the titular character of this 1980's sci-fi adventure comedy whatzit. The coolest character to ever take the screen.
Scientist/ Stunt driver/ rock and roll musician/ philosopher and so much more: Buckaroo Banzai
Day: Friday 02/25/2022
Time: 8:30 PM Central/ 6:30 PM Pacific
Format: Amazon Streaming
Cost: $0 for Prime Members/ $4 for non-Prime Members
This is not a good movie, but it is a fascinating movie. If you hate Nazis (and I do!) it's not unappealing to see a supernatural force take them apart.
I found out during this viewing that I had been given some wildly inaccurate information about the origins of the film - that it was based on a Richard Matheson novel (it is not) and that in the original novel, it's Dracula in the Keep, thus the Carpathian mountains (completely and utterly wrong). Frankly, having read the description of the novel, I like the idea of Dracula cooling in a Keep in the Carpathians a whole lot more than the description of the novel, which sounds like a very matter-of-fact fantasy novel that would not be my jam.
The appeal of the film is in watching early Michael Mann with a budget and - if you're so inclined - a Tangerine Dream score that matches the action. It's a dreamy, music video of a movie with minimal dialog and falls squarely in a rare 20-year period where that was maybe fine in film. Before, people would not have known what you were doing, and after, movies started filling in every crevice of a film with wall-to-wall exposition.
I was pleased the assembled watch-partiers were more or less fine with the movie, all things considered. I guess when Sheena was our last touch-base, this is like Citizen Kane.
Anyway, there's some interesting dynamics at play as it's clear the main evil supernatural force is a big ol liar and the promise that he may just murder his way to Berlin and melt Hitler is a bit of bullshit to convince Ian McKellan to help him out, but for a brief moment, you think "well, maybe we can let this extradimensional being tear shit up. Enemy of my enemy, etc..." Also, the movie makes a fine point about how citizens can get caught up in the bullshit of their nation's leaders and become subordinate to the true believers, who generally are not the kind of folks who really want to have to answer to.
Say what you will, but this movie is definitely The Keep. Directed by Michael Mann, starring Ian McKellan, Gabriel Byrne and Scott Glenn, it's about a bunch of literal Nazis taking over a Romanian village and holing up in the castle/ keep in the middle of town. Only... the keep isn't there to keep people out, it's built to keep something in.
I hope you like Tangerine Dream, because Michael Mann did.
We're gonna pour one out for Tanya and celebrate her starring role as classic pulp hero, Sheena: Queen of the Jungle! Is that a tiger? Tigers don't live in Africa. What the actual hell?
Anyway, I saw this in 5th grade in a brief window where we had HBO and all I remember is "too many flamingos".
We're gonna watch this thing.
Day: Friday 02/11
Time: 8:30 PM Central/ 6:30 Pacific
Where: Amazon Prime
Cost: $0, I believe - but you'll WISH you could give someone some money
