Trek/ Cattrall Watch: Star Trek VI - The Undiscovered Country (1991)

Watched:  05/02/2021

Format:  Amazon Prime Streaming

Viewing:  Unknown

Decade:  1990's

Director:  Nicholas Meyer

This is... my third favorite Trek movie?  Pretty remarkable for a movie that has very few ship-fetish shots and plays like a 3-part episode of the TV series.  But, man, it just works.  

I believe it was advertised as the final movie for the original crew from Star Trek before The Next Generation gang took over, but as an excitable 16 year old, I thought "nah, they just got their mojo back on this one.  They'll make more."*  

So, yeah, shocker, I am into a tight murder mystery set in space with the fate of the galaxy in the balance.  Throw in ship-to-ship combat, several rad supporting cast members beyond the usual crew, plus Sulu as Captain of his own ship (and, my god, had they just given Takei a spin-off series back then...), \more wildly over-the-top Klingons in the form of Plummer's Shakespeare spouting warrior, Chang (love everything about this character) -  and it's like Trek was just punching "Ryan will like this" buttons.  

And, of course, Kim Cattrall as Lt. Valeris.

Watch Party Watch: Teen Witch (1989)

Watched:  04/30/2021

Format:  Amazon Watch Party

Viewing:  Second

Decade:  1980's

Director:  I don't care

We're wrapping up our Friday Night Watch Parties this coming week, and maybe that's all for the best.  For - I may never top Teen Witch (1989) as an offering.  It's all downhill from here.  

It's one thing when people make a movie and try and it doesn't live up to expectations.  It's another when you can tell someone was pushing out garbage to take advantage of a place in the market and literally seemed to not care how the movie turned out.  And that's being generous, because the alternative with Teen Witch is to accept that adults made this film and this was their moonshot, and then we have to wonder: do you know how movies work?

Animation Watch: The Mitchells vs the Machines (2021)

Watched:  05/01/2021

Format:  Netflix

Viewing:  First

Decade:  2020's

Director:  Michael Rianda, Jeff Rowe 

I'm not going to bother writing this up.  Another terrific Lord & Miller produced animation with a terrific voice cast.  Hysterical, moving, gorgeously animated...  very glad this is out there.  

But I figure everyone with a Netflix account will have seen it, so just go nuts on your own on this one.

I don't have kids, and I got this one.  I imagine a lot of you parents were choking back some feelings watching this one.

International Watch: The Handmaiden (2016)

Watched:  05/02/2021

Format:  Amazon Streaming

Viewing:  First

Decade:  2010's

Director:  Chan-wook Park

Look, this movie is impossible to discuss without spoilers - so, look out

SPOILERS

2010's Watch: Everybody Wants Some (2016)

Watched:  04/28/2021

Format:  Amazon

Viewing:  First

Decade:  2010's

Director:  Richard Linklater

I remember the trailers for Everybody Wants Some (2016) were almost confusing.  They made no argument for why anyone should get off their ass and get to the theater to see the movie - a film about a bunch of baseball players at the fictional East Texas State University, kind of screwing around, and...  

It seemed the ads almost counted on a knowledge of how Linklater's other movies worked, and counted on you wanting more with different characters.  But in 2016, an all-male cast of dudes acting like dudes seemed almost tone-deaf, and the population who would be nostalgic for the college years circa 1980 was mostly home watching Downton Abbey.  

Honestly, the first fifteen minutes or so - I wasn't sure I was on board.  It *is* an all-male cast being dudes.  I'd like to say college dudes are not that crass, but some sure are, and the things you let slide... 

Art House Watch: The Cook, The Thief, His Wife and Her Lover (1989)

Watched:  04/28/2021

Format:  Peacock (of all places)

Viewing:  Second

Decade:  1980's

Director:  Peter Greenaway

Back in the merry old days of first arriving at college, living on campus at UT Austin was a perfect sort of thing to do if you were a movie nut - or turn you into one.  I could walk to Dobie Theater and catch international and art film, Hogg Auditorium was basically rented by a student society of some sort who brought in Hong Kong films.*   The Memorial Union Theater was open at the time and programmed by some serious film nerds, so that's where, my first night on campus, I wandered down to see Tie Me Up, Tie Me  Down with kids I had never met before but who lived a few doors down.  

Anyway, I was not unaware of The Cook, The Thief, His Wife & Her Lover (1989) in high school.  I was known to drive into town to go catch a movie at the River Oaks or wherever some interesting stuff was showing - and I may have seen the poster of Helen Mirren in lingerie and given the poster a longer than necessary look.  Or maybe a cover in the video store.  Anyhoo, early Freshman year at some point (I really think in the first weeks of school), we headed down to the Memorial Union and caught the film.  And my brain kind of melted.

Watch Party Watch: Voodoo Woman (1957)

Watched:  04/26/2021

Format:  Amazon Watch Party

Viewing:  First

Decade:  1950's

Director:  Edward L. Cahn

So, Voodoo Woman (1957) is a low-budget picture released through API that's more or less a jungle horror adventure aimed at teens, I think.  

The plot gives us the ruthless Marilyn (Marla English) who wants GOLD in the jungle, I think.  Anyway, she dupes a local barkeep into funding her as she talks her would-be boyfriend (Lance Fuller) into going out there, along with a hired guide/ tough guy (Touch Connors).  But - whoops - they're headed for a village where voodoo magic is melding with mad science as colonialist scientician Dr. Roland Gerard (Tom Conway) is working with local tribes people who perform voodoo to (a) prove you can transform a person into a sort of Voodoo Monster, and (b) use science to keep them in that state.

I won't bother you with more details.  It's a movie that is rigidly against more than three set-ups per scene, doesn't make much sense, but has both an AMAZING monster suit for the titular Voodoo Woman and Marla English is terrific as the scheming evil-lady at the center of the picture.  

Go in expecting a movie-serial-level production and you'll be fine!  

PODCAST: "Blade Runner" (1982) - a Signal Watch Canon episode w/ Ryan and SimonUK

Watched:  04/19/2021

Format:  BluRay - version - The Final Cut

Viewing:  Unknown

Decade:  1980's

Director:  Ridley Scott

For more ways to listen

More PodCast than PodCast, that's our motto! Ryan and SimonUK sit down and check our emotional response to this 1980's favorite of design and theme! There's nothing artificial about how we chase down one of the best of the sci-fi genre that defined an aesthetic, crossed genres, and asked the big questions.

The Signal Watch PodCast · 146: "Blade Runner" (1982) - a Signal Watch Canon episode w/ Ryan & SimonUK

Music:  

Blade Runner Main Theme - Vangelis, Blade Runner OST

Tears in Rain - Vangelis, Blade Runner OST

Signal Watch Canon:

The Signal Watch PodCast · The Signal Watch Canon

Art House Watch: In the Mood for Love (2000)

Watched:  04/25/2021

Format:  Criterion Channel

Viewing:  First

Decade:  2000's

Director:  Wong Kar-wai

Still processing this movie.  Stunning.

Clearly Hong Kong based and created melodramas are a bit out of my wheelhouse, but there's much here to admire, from the cinematography to the restrained, lovely performances of Maggie Cheung and Tony Leung.  

I've been meaning to take in some Wong Kar-Wai movies for... about 25 years.  Well worth the wait.  I admit what triggered me to take a look was that Tony Leung will be in Shang-Chi, and I remembered "oh, yeah...  some Wong Kar-Wait stuff is on the Criterion Channel right now..."

Anyway, will definitely watch again.  Lovely, and I wish I'd seen it on the big screen.

Watch Party Watch: Crawl (2019)

Watched:  04/23/2021

Format:  Amazon Watch Party

Viewing:  second!

Decade:  2010's

Director:  Alexandre Aja

This is the second time I saw this.  It was a good movie for a crowd with lots of go-to jokes about injuries minor and fatal.

SimonUK and I discussed my love of movies about animals eating people on a prior podcast about Crawl.  

Super Watch: Thunder Force (2021)

Watched:  04/24/2021

Format:  Netflix

Viewing:  First

Decade:  2020's

Director:  Ben Falcone

Look, this movie is exactly what it looks like and exactly what you expect.  It feels like it fell out of the 1990's in a lot of ways, but is totally fine.

Hamilton Watch: Black Moon Rising (1986)

Watched:  04/23/2021

Format:  Amazon Prime

Viewing:  Second

Decade:  very, very 1980's

Director:  Harley Cokeliss

When you're a kid, you kinda like everything you see, and then - one day - you admit "that... maybe was sort of boring, or not what I wanted to watch".  The excitement of "movie" fades away, and you're admitting to yourself - even if the poster contained a cool car, a cool dude and a pretty lady, maybe that movie was not as good as the poster promised.  

I don't remember anything about Black Moon Rising (1986) from when I watched it on cable or VHS as a kid except that I didn't much care for it.  Well, I'd totally forgotten that the movie had any other known actors other than a pre-fame Tommy Lee Jones, but I was looking at it for a Friday night watch party and realized "oh, wow, this has Linda Hamilton!"  And I like me some Linda Hamilton.

Anyway - Linda Hamilton is probably one of two reasons to watch this movie.  She's doing her best in a movie that flatly doesn't deserve it.  She's wearing a crazy wig in the first scenes, so don't freak out when you see her in a doofy haircut.  The other reason is to see the kooky car they cast as The Black Moon.*

A deeply NOT street legal vehicle that looks designed to murder pedestrians and corner poorly, The Black Moon has turbo-boost, something we'd all seen on Knight Rider for years by the time this movie came out.  

Really, aside from Linda Hamilton's briefly glimpsed self, it feels a bit like a network TV movie.  

What's most alarming is that the titular car of the film is barely in the movie - you see more of Jackie Chan's supercar in Cannonball Run II.  And, as I mentioned, the movie doesn't do much with the car being "super".  In the same era as Blue Thunder, Air Wolf, Knight Rider, Street Hawk, etc...  putting a car out there as the central conceit better have *some* hook.  But, really, this movie is about the car getting boosted by Robert Vaughn's apparently wildly profitable car theft ring - a business so profitable I think they're suggesting he's building two skyscrapers in LA on the profits.  

Jones plays a thief in the employ of the US government who has stolen some data from Lee Ving of punk band Fear and, stumbling across the team bringing The Black Moon to LA to show it to investors, hides the data in the car...

You know what?  This movie isn't really worth a synopsis.  I can't recommend it.  It's slow as a heist movie, Jones isn't even great.  I read he was boozing a bit during this time, and that may be it.  Hamilton is fine, but she can't save this wreck.  

But, yeah:  Robert Vaughn, Linda Hamilton, Tommy Lee Jones, Bubba Smith, Lee Ving, Richard Jaeckel, William Sanderson, Keenan Wynn, a baby Nick Cassavetes...  it's kind of wild seeing all the folks go by.  The movie has a writing credit by John Carpenter, and advertised itself as "from the mind of", but it's telling that imdb trivia states he'd never seen it.

Oh well.  We can all still like Linda Hamilton.

*the wacky looking car is actually a fake version of the 1980 Wingho Concordia II, a real and unique car.

Doc Watch: Dangerous Days - Making Blade Runner (2007)

Watched:  04/21/2021

Format:  BluRay

Viewing:  First

Decade:  2000's

Director:  Charles de Lauzirika

For, really, the hardcore Blade Runner fan, Dangerous Days (2007) tries to put the documentary treatment to much of the same ground as Paul Sammon's book, Future Noir: The Making of Blade Runner.*  It's definitely its own thing, and they cover different but overlapping territories.  There's participation from darn near everyone - and who knows who they left on the cutting room floor.

But, yeah, from coffee shop conversations about "you should adapt this novel" to "huh, looks like we made a cultural juggernaut", and everything inbetween, it's an expansive view of not just the vision and why's and wherefore's of this very special film, but a look at the machinery of movie-making that's only got one layer of gloss.  25 years after the fact, people are more generous with each other, even if you do wind up with conflicting versions of events here and there.  

Worth it for the behind-the-scenes looks as much as the interviews, but... just know as I did not when I started the doc - it's 3.5 hours.  Break it up into a 2 or more viewings.  It has handy chapter sections, so feel free to turn it off and come back.  

Coincidentally, this is the first book I ever purchased through Amazon.  

Watch Party Watch: Yog - Monster from Space/ The Space Amoeba (1970)

Watched:  04/19/2021

Format:  Amazon Watch Party

Viewing:  First

Decade:  1970's

Director:  Ishirō Honda

This movie is not about an amoeba from space.  

I don't remember anyone calling the thing that does show up "Yog".  

It is about a sort of pile of glowing animated dots from space.  But that's not really an amoeba, is it, movie?

The blob of lights keeps infesting local beach creatures which turns them into rampaging kaiju, which creates a hard time for our friends who want to build a hotel on a remote island.  

Anyway, it's a lot of quality nonsense.  

PODCAST: "Cool Hand Luke" (1967) - a Signal Watch Canon Episode w/ MRSHL and Ryan

Watched:  02/10/2021

Format:  Amazon Streaming

Viewing:  Unknown

Decade:  1960's

Director:  Stuart Rosenberg

Click here for more ways to listen

We're discussing our personal canon, and to that end, Marshall and Ryan do not fail to communicate about one of the best movies of the New Hollywood era. Join us as we talk prison movies, analogy, and using film to reflect upon the wider world. Come on! It's one of the greats of American cinema starring one of the greats of American cinema! Come give us a listen.

 

The Signal Watch PodCast · 145: "Cool Hand Luke" (1967) - Signal Watch Canon w/ MRSHL and Ryan

Music:

Main Title and End Title - Lalo Shifrin, Cool Hand Luke OST

Signal Watch Canon:

The Signal Watch PodCast · The Signal Watch Canon

Maniac Watch: Maniac (1980)

Watched:  04/16/2021

Format:  Amazon Prime

Viewing:  First

Decade:  1980's

Director:  William Lustig

One of the interesting things about horror is that it can be used to give an actor a showcase who might not otherwise get one.  Joe Spinell is not a name with which a ton of people are familiar, although he had appeared in two Rocky films. I knew him from his star turn as the villain in Starcrash.  

Spinell was in a ton of stuff, but mostly not in leading roles, and mostly played a heavy.  Maybe not the greatest way to stretch one's acting resume.  But in 1980 he was part of the creative team that wrote and created Maniac, the movie of which he is the star (but let's agree it's weird to call him a protagonist, even if he is, kinda sorta).  He created an opportunity, and he really made the most of it.

JAL recommended the film, and I'd been putting it off, but it seemed like good counter-programming to The Beautician and the Beast.  Anyhoo... I get why JAL suggested it, and I did, in fact "like" it, which is a curious thing to say about a movie where a guy kills a whole bunch of people over 90 minutes.

I'm going to recommend the movie as a terrific/ whacko character study, a truly grisly horror movie (I did not watch with Jamie), and having a hell of an ending.  

Plus, it briefly co-stars Signal Watch fave, Caroline Munro!  Just sorta being Caroline Munro - but as a photographer!  

see!  There she is!  

Anyway - no spoilers.  But if you like the grittiness of, say, Basketcase, this movie is for you.

Watch Party Watch: The Beautician and the Beast (1997)

Watched:  04/16/2021

Format:  Amazon Watch Party

Viewing:  First

Decade:  1990's

Director:  Ken Kwapis

Wait wait wait...  Fran Drescher plays a sassy Jewish girl from working class New York who a well-meaning functionary mistakes as a great candidate for a child-rearing role for a powerful and wealthy handsome widower?  What an entirely novel concept!  

Look, you couldn't not be aware of Fran Drescher circa 1997.  I remember my grandmother praising The Nanny at the time, and my own hip 20-something skepticism.  But a couple of years ago I found myself watching re-runs of the show, and I was like "oh, I get it.  She wants to be Lucille Ball, but in mini-skirts and leaning into Jewish stereotypes that I, as a WASP from Texas, can neither confirm nor deny."  Frankly, for what it is, it works.  I won't say the show is "smart" exactly, but it does what it does well, and I get how it lasted 6 seasons.

But... even in 1997 I was confused by The Beautician and the Beast.  It's the same thing as what she was doing on TV.  Like, pretty much exactly.  The movie is even PG from an era where comedies were PG-13, but Drescher's comedy was always flirty, not going for overt sex comedy or working blue, and so felt sanitized for network censors of the time.  So there's not even "we could never do this on TV" to separate the two.  Drescher is quoted as saying she didn't want to challenge the audience too much as she moved to movies, but I'd argue - don't just ask them to pay for what they can see every week for free.*

Doc Watch: Pumping Iron (1977)

Watched:  04/15/2021

Format:  Amazon Prime

Viewing:  First

Decade:  1970's

Director:  George Butler, Robert Fiore

So, I finally watched Pumping Iron (1977)!  It was super good.  I'm not spending the energy to write it up, but if I liked Arnie before (and he's my imaginary friend, so, yes), nothing has changed.  Also, it was wild to see young Lou Ferrigno.  

Noir Watch Party: The Blue Gardenia (1953)

Watched:  04/13/2021

Format:  Amazon Watch Party

Viewing:  Second

Decade:  1950's

Director:  Fritz Lang

We'd watched The Blue Gardenia (1953) some time back, and this time I'm inclined to be kinder to the film.  It's still not my favorite, but with Anne Baxter, Ann Sothern, Richard Conte and Raymond Burr and Fritz Lang directing, you kind of expect a bit more.

Anne Baxter gets a Dear Jane letter from her solider-boy boyfriend who has met a nurse overseas, and tells her he's getting married.  She does as anyone might do, receives a call for her roommate (Ann Sothern) looking for a date, takes up the fellow on it, and meets up with Raymond Burr.  Because it's 1953, Burr is not a nice guy, and he gets Baxter drunk and takes her back to his place to take advantage of her.  

Baxter wakes up at home, unsure of what happened, but she's left her shoes at Burr's apartment, which is embarrassing enough, but also: he's been killed with a fire poker.  So.  She seems to have totally murdered a dude and left her shoes behind.

Conte plays a local reporter - a social crusading type in search of headlines, and he begins the search for the woman they dub "The Blue Gardenia".

Fritz Lang wasn't one to shy away from a good thriller, of course, and this film puts the audience in the curious spot of identifying with a woman who just killed someone, with pretty good reason, but by social mores of the 1950's - if she's arrested, who knows?  Could be the gas chamber.  And if she's acquitted for self-protection?  One can assume she'd be "ruined" by attacks on her character for having made the terrible decision to cozy up to Raymond Burr.  The film doesn't explicitly say anything about a woman's place in society in 1953, but it's not hard to understand what the assumed rules are, and how Lang and the writers used those notions to build a better mousetrap for our protagonist.  As the audience, we know it's unjust, but...

Unfortunately, Conte is written as a bit of a dingbat, apparently buying a whole lot of "I have a friend who may have done a thing" storytelling, that I'd assume anyone as old as 14 would recognize as "and I assume this friend is you?"  But it's not how it's played off.  

The movie generally *looks* great, with Nicholas Musuraca listed as Cinematographer, and who had plenty of prior experience he brought to bear in this film.  

Again, the movie is fine - it just wasn't one I'd had any particular penchant for the first time I saw it, and that was more or less how I felt on round 2.

Noir Watch: Naked Alibi (1954)

Watched:  04/12/2021

Format:  BluRay

Viewing:  First

Decade:  1950's

Director:  Jerry Hopper

Burning the last of my "it's your birthday, watch what you want" goodwill, I chose Naked Alibi (1954) - a movie I'd heard was "ehhh".  And, indeed, it was. 

But, look, I'm a Sterling Hayden stan and a Gloria Grahame nut, so this seemed like a slam dunk.  Alas.

Sterling Hayden plays a detective that in literally any other movie would be a rogue cop.or just a thug of a cop (see Hayden in Crimewave).  Here, his underlings haul in a guy for basically existing on the sidewalk after dark and seem set to pin a crime on him minus any evidence, so he loses it and slugs a cop.  But the guy is a baker, with a young wife and kids.  It makes no sense, yet Hayden decides he's a crook and hassles him.  Two of his guys get blown up by a car bomb, and he decides it must be Al the Baker, and goes about police-harassing him, including manhandling him in front of witnesses and the press, which gets him fired.