80's Watch: Jewel of the Nile (1985)

As Jamie asked:  What is the physics of what's happening here?

Watched:  04/02/2022

Format:  HBOmax

Viewing:  third?

Director:  Lewis Teague

Woof.

This movie is so bad it has a body count.  No, really.  The last thing in the credits is a "in memory of" and four names scroll by, including the name of Diane Thomas who created Romancing the Stone, of which this is a sequel.

Even as a kid, when I saw The Jewel of the Nile (1985) in the theater, I thought this movie was "not good".  I couldn't have told you why then.  Jamie informs me, when I said "this feels like a cash grab" that it was made incredibly quickly on the heels of Romancing the Stone, and that Kathleen Turner initially refused to do it because the script was so bad.  Y'all, Kathleen Turner is not wrong.  

A weirdly meandering film that just keeps happening, there's essentially a start and an end with no middle during which a bunch of stuff just sort of happens and when our leads are together, they seem like they absolutely *should* part ways as all they can do is argue, it makes the entire third-act rekindling of the romance of the movie make no sense.  But there are multiple scenes in the movie that make no sense but happen just so there's something happening on screen - maybe the greatest example of which is "the chief's son wants to fight Jack so he can court Joan" but the Chief's son is in a hut?  And they just showed up?  And why didn't they just say they were married or betrothed?  Like.  uggghhhhh.

Doc Watch: Summer of Soul (2021)

Watched:  03/30/2022

Format:  Disney+

Viewing:  First

Director:  Questlove

I started watching Summer of Soul (2021) last year on Hulu, but got in trouble with Jamie for starting it without her.  But somehow we never circled back and watched it.  

Well, I guess it won an Academy Award, so that's a feather in Questlove's cap.  And well deserved.  But it also means there's no real reason for me to further discuss or sell you on this movie.  Or even explain it.  

It's a really beautiful, amazing thing.  Watch it.

Doc Watch: You Don't Nomi (2019)

Watched:  03/29/2022

Format:  Amazon Streaming

Viewing:  First

Director:  Jeffrey McHale

After watching and podcasting Showgirls, I believe Justin (and then Paul) suggested I watch the documentary You Don't Nomi (2019) a sort of retrospective investigating how we can view the 1995 film, seen as a catastrophe at the time of release but which has been reconsidered as a camp classic in the intervening years.  The doc features multiple reviewers, entertainers and others engaging with the film.  No small amount of the original film is seen as the movie leverages the idea of fair-use in investigating and transforming the source material - and so too does it liberally borrow from other films by Paul Verhoeven.  

In many ways, it's like a bit of film school packed into a tidy 1:38 or whatever it was.  Opinions are applied as fact, schools of thought as dogma.  But almost no one speaking is in total agreement.  We look at what else Verhoeven has done, we look for things he returns to, what his films say on certain topics (women!  violence!  seeeeeeeexxxx!) and try to draw conclusions.  And with Verhoeven, the answer is often that, no, he's not making a mistake or doing something goofy, he meant something specific and it wasn't there to make you feel better or confirm your biases.  All of which, were I to watch Showgirls sober, would definitely make me re-evaluate the film.  

Chill Out Watch: Napolean Dynamite (2004)

Watched:  03/25/2022

Format:  Amazon Prime

Viewing:  Unknown

Director:  Jared Hess

I am torn between writing a lengthy thing about this movie and writing nothing about this movie, and I don't think the world is better for me writing a longer thing.  We all know this movie is 1000x better than we thought it would be.  

So, I will just say that Tina Majorino is the not-at-all-secret weapon of this movie, and it's amazing.  

Also, I have that the local AC and plumbing company is doing Napolean Dynamite skits for its commercials.  They aren't good.

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

Parker Watch: Parker (2013)

Watched: 03/18/2022

Format:  BluRay

Viewing:  Second

Decade:  2010's

Director:  Taylor Hackford

By now, I assume y'all know I'm a bit of a completionist, and I'm slowly buying the BluRays of all the movies based upon the Parker novels by Richard Stark.  Most famous of these movies include Point Blank with Lee Marvin and Payback starring Mel Gibson (which I don't own because Gibson, but probably will buy used to take him out of the money chain).  

If you're newer to the blog, when I traveled a lot for work, I read all 24 Parker novels and the Grofeld offshoots.  The movies never match the books - writer Richard Stark (real name: Donald Westlake) was not willing to let them use the name "Parker" as he was aware that the movies would differ too much from the books, and movie people tend to miss the point of Parker.  Which is 100% true.  So the movies are all oddball mutations of Parker as a character and the plots of the novels  - which, if done straight, would be fascinating stuff and probably spur a 1000 think pieces about following a character who is in no way a hero.  He is not a badguy, but he is a bad guy.

PodCast 189: "The Evil Dead" (1981) - a Horror Canon episode w/ JAL and Ryan

Watched:  03/13/2022

Format:  HBOMax+

Viewing: Unknown

Decade:  1980's

Director:  Sam Raimi

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JAL returns to the PodCast to talk about a movie series that helped cement a friendship! Join us as we ponder the crazy early vision of a master of movie making, getting good results out of annoying everyone around you, and what you can do on a shoestring budget that can still provide genuine scares and have a bloody good time.

SoundCloud 

The Signal Watch PodCast · 189: "The Evil Dead" (1981) - a Horror Canon episode w/ JAL and Ryan

YouTube

Music:

Introduction - Joseph LoDuca, The Evil Dead OST

Dawn of the Evil Dead - Joseph LoDuca, The Evil Dead OST

Horror Podcasts!

The Signal Watch PodCast · Halloween and Horror

Pixar Watch: Turning Red (2022)

Watched:  03/15/2022

Format:  Disney+

Viewing:  First

Director:  Domee Shi

I'm going to try to secure Michero to come in and talk about Turning Red (2022), so no lengthy write-up.  

Uh...  so.  How to do this if there will be a podcast?  

I liked it!  You should watch it.  Definitely a great one for the kids hitting late elementary school and up.  It's gonna feel familiar.  For the younger ones, a foretaste of what's coming.

I have a few theories about why it took place in 2002, but will try to verify.  

St. Patrick's Day Watch: Leprechaun (1993)

Watched:  03/11/2022

Format:  Amazon Watch Party

Viewing:  Second

Director:  Who knows and who cares

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.  

A bit about the thing with Mark Holton's moron...  

PodCast 188: "Fantastic Four" (2015) - FF Part 2 - a Kryptonian Thought Beast Episode w/ Danny Horn and Ryan

Watched:  03/01/2022

Format:  Disney+

Viewing: First

Director:  Josh Trank

For more ways to listen

Danny Horn and Ryan continue on their Marvelous adventure, picking up with Fox's fabulous alternative attempt at bringing the Fantastic Four to the silver screen. And what's more fun for the kids showing up for a superhero romp than turning Marvel's first family into a body horror spectacular? Why, you can also double-down with dead-eyed stars, a grim-as-hell plot and an ending that is dumb as hell. But you WILL reconsider the 2005 film and bump it up a few notches in your personal rankings.

SoundCloud

The Signal Watch PodCast · 188: "Fantastic Four" (2015) - FF Part 2 - a Kryptonian Thought Beast Episode w/ Danny Horn and Ryan

YouTube

Music:

Fantastic Four Prelude - Marco Beltram and...  Philip Glass?  WTF?

The mentioned article about how Miles Teller sucks

Marvel Madness Playlist!

The Signal Watch PodCast · Marvel Madness - Movies and More...!

Western Watch: My Darling Clementine (1946)

Watched:  03/09/2022

Format:  Amazon

Viewing:  First

Director:  John Ford

Yet another deeply factually inaccurate take on the events including Wyatt Earp, Doc Holliday and the Clantons at the OK Corral, but a solid one that throws out all attempts to stay true to the story and instead does its own myth-making.  That's alright.  We have how many years of TV and movies that have used Earp and Holliday as fictional characters with fictional motivations to the point where my usual rules about biopics can't possibly apply.  

I was spurred to check this one out based on a single photo of Victor Mature in a cowboy hat, a still from this movie, and I'm a bit of a Victor Mature fan, and I had never seen him in a western.  When I checked to see what the story was with My Darling Clementine (1946), it was directed by Ford and co-starred Henry Fonda as Earp and Linda Darnell as "Chihuahua", a Mexican songstress.  And, look, I'm only human.  I'll watch a Linda Darnell movie for all the wrong reasons.  The titular Clementine is played by Cathy Downs, who would go on to sci-fi fame in some B pictures like The Amazing Colossal Man, but who also performed in some noir pictures around the 1940's and 50's.  

he's so cool

The movie fictionalizes a full background as a surgeon for "Doc" Holliday (he was a dentist), and makes up a love triangle between himself and Chihuahua, his local saloon lady, and Clementine - a nurse he once loved when he was still practicing.  While the Clantons are trying to remain outlaw lords of Tombstone, they make the mistake of killing Wyatt Earp's (Fonda's) brother, which leads to Earp becoming Marshall of Tombstone - already famed for his work in Dodge City and Deadwood.  Earp falls hard for the virtuous Clementine, and she has some conflicted feelings (and Doc seems kinda screwed up anyway, plus, you know, he's dating Linda Darnell).  

I can genuinely recommend the movie.  I think it's got a lot going for it, and Ford gets great stuff out of his four leads.  The real life story will continue to exist, but I like the arc for Mature's Holliday, and I think he nails it.   But you've also got Ford's Monument valley backdrops, beautifully shot, thoughtful execution of scene after scene, and a kind of humanity to the characters that grounds everything.

I mean...  Linda Darnell

Doc Watch: Lucy and Desi (2022)

Watched:  03/08/2022

Format:  Amazon

Viewing:  First

Director/ Producer:  Amy Poehler

I don't know that I would have looked at Amy Poehler standing on one leg on SNL a couple decades ago and thought "documentarian", but - apparently along with her skills as a comedian/ actor/ director/ writer/ improviser/ producer, we can now include documentarian.

I had no interest in the recently released biopic by Aaron Sorkin.  I'm not a Sorkin-head, and I generally find biopics of well-documented people are really about something going on with the creators, not the actual subjects.  Maybe it's the history major in me, but coming up with make-believe scenes to illustrate some fundamental message imposed on people's lives, you're going to wind up with something between an impression and a grotesquerie.  But, I dunno.  Sometimes it works.  

Documentary, done well, tends to surface actual themes and truths about the subjects as directors find their story in repeated beats in research and interviews.  And when it comes to real people who, once upon a time, were routinely covered in tabloids even after their deaths, who were in our living rooms for decades (I watched reruns of I Love Lucy as a kid), give me some talking heads, production stills and 8mm family movies every time.  

There's a lot here I didn't know, much I did through osmosis mover the years.  But it's well done and - with so many years since the passing of both Lucy and Desi, can afford to be fair-handed as possible while being sympathetic to certain quirks and challenges of both personalities.  That Poehler would see some of her self in Lucille Ball, as a comedian who has been at the top, continues to enjoy celebrity and side projects that are not the heights of what she's known for, but which are solid nonetheless...  I am not entirely shocked she picked Ball as a subject worth of research with whom she could spend time.

The one thing I found profoundly odd that the doc doesn't mention is that Lucy was about 40 when she started working on I Love Lucy.  She was giving birth to children in her 40's, starring in her show and building Desilu essentially in the back-half of a career.  I don't know if Poehler thought it was ageism or sexism or something that need not be discussed, but frankly I think it's vital information for how remarkable Lucille Ball was, because I've seen a few of her films from before the crafted I Love Lucy persona, and it's a different actor.  And second acts should always be celebrated.

Anyway, I'm thrilled Poehler made the doc, and it's as well done as I think you could hope for.  

Musical Watch: West Side Story (2021)

Watched:  03/05/2021

Format:  Disney+

Viewing:  First

Director:  Steven Spielberg

We won't belabor you with the facts of the 1957 stage play or much about the original film.  There's an endless stream of media on the topic, and even last year we were treated to a lengthy special on the 1961 film reuniting Rita Moreno, George Chakiris and Russ Tamblyn.

I know I was aware of West Side Story when my mom took me to see it as a play in a small, downtown theater in Austin's former warehouse district around 5th or 6th grade.  I don't remember much in the way of my impressions other than being shocked that our heroes didn't walk away into the sunset - unhappy endings were still a novelty at that point.

It's likely I saw at least part of the 1961 version when I was 14 and my English class covered Romeo and Juliet.  But I didn't see it in full til summer of 1992 when I was at a drama camp for 7 weeks.*  I very much remember crowding around the TV and the silence from a room full of 17-year-olds at the film's end.  And, of course, being told "no, the girl in purple is Rita Moreno."

Neo-Noir Watch: Fargo (1996)

Watched:  02/28/2022

Format:  TCM

Viewing:  Unknown

Decade:  1990's

Director:  Joel Coen

God damn, this movie.  

Like many, I loved (LOVED) Fargo when we saw it in the theater back in 1996, and I watched it several times in the years immediately following, but it's been a long stretch since I last watched it beginning to end.  I was watching the final 20 minutes or so of Blood Simple on TCM, and Jamie suggested we record Fargo and watch it in a day or so, and as Jamie is wise, I was on board.    

And, really, the two movies aren't a bad pairing.  

Blood Simple - the Coens' first - is a horror-like noir with trappings of unfaithful wives, murder of lovers, which might have been in drawing rooms in the 1940's and is transplanted to suburban Texas (the greater Austin area) where it all takes on a sheen of low-fi, red neckiness.  But it also is Texas mean - something we'd see repeated in their adaptation of No Country For Old Men.  

Famously, Fargo (1996) takes place between Fargo, North Dakota and Minneapolis, Minnesota, with stops in Brainerd, Minnesota - and all in the whiteout dead of winter.  The film exists in empty spaces, from the wide open plains of Brainerd to parking lots with a single car to lake fronts in winter.  Minneapolis, with people huddled inside, has its own sense of emptiness.  Even the spacious home of the Lundegaards has a kind of desolation.  

PodCast 187: "Fantastic Four" (2005) - FF Part 1 - a Kryptonian Thought Beast Episode w/ Danny Horn and Ryan

Watched:  02/27/2022

Format:  Disney+

Viewing:  Third?  Fourth?

Decade:  2000's

Director:  Tim Story

For more ways to listen

Guest contributor Danny Horn joins us as we miscalculate and wind up victims of a mutation leading to a 2-part episode! To be completely transparent, in this installment, we stretch our film reviewing, but wind up with some rock solid observations you'll find hot, hot, hot. First up we talk the 2005 attempt by Fox to turn Stan and Jack's creation into a film, by making a movie about people who do nothing particularly heroic and keep making Jessica Alba disrobe for no reason.

The Signal Watch PodCast · 187: "Fantastic Four" (2005) - FF Part 1 - a Kryptonian Thought Beast Episode w/ Danny Horn and Ryan

Music:

Fantastic Four Main Theme (2005) - John Ottman

Marvel Madness - Movies and More..!

The Signal Watch PodCast · Marvel Madness, Movies and More...!

Doc Watch: Class Action Park (2020)

Watched:  03/01/2022
Format:  HBOmax
Viewing:  First

Director:  Seth Porges

In the way of so many documentaries, this one was about 85% of the way there, but I couldn't go with them the last stretch of the film when they try to "make sense of it all".  Class Action Park (2020) is a feature-length doc about the notorious amusement park, Action Park, formerly located outside of New York City that has, since the early 00's, spawned legends of how out of control the place was, and, in fact, dangerous.  Open through the 1980's, the park was one of hundreds, if not thousands, dotting America.

The first half of the film is hysterical as you take a look at the rides and hear tales of how the place was owned and operated by a former penny-stocks Wall Street tycoon banned from the market by the SEC (I think).  He took his Randian concept of personal risk and responsibility as a businessman, applied that to amusement park attendance, and built a two-sided theme park - one side water-based rides like slides and wavepools, and the other being go-karts.  For anyone growing up in the 1980's, you'll see a lot of things you also took part in.  Bumper boats, go-karts, water slides.  But our go-karts at Malibu Grand Prix had speed governors.  Theirs did not.

Brit Noir Watch: Cast a Dark Shadow (1955)

Watched:  02/28/2022

Format:  Noir Alley TCM

Viewing:  First

Decade:  1950's

Director:  Lewis Gilbert

Apparently Cast a Dark Shadow (1955) received poor notices and didn't set the box office on fire upon its release, and I can see how in the mid-50's this thriller would disappear into the background of so much in the way of crime films, mystery, murder and mayhem.  

But I dug it.  

Starring Dirk Bogarde and Margaret Lockwood, it feels like it never shakes off its roots as a stageplay, and that's not necessarily a bad thing.   The limited number of sets and lack of spectacle keeps the focus on just story and character - which all of the players manage well with their performances and under Gilbert's direction.  

Bogarde plays a young man of the working classes who has found himself married to a much older woman whom he decides to bump off for the money.  It's a bit of an elaborate scheme, both what he plans to do to accomplish the lady's demise and what needs to happen after.  But, that accomplished, he sets out to find another older lady to help him get some cash.  

Here, he meets Lockwood, and she's worldly and wise in a way no other woman has been.  But she's also not that much older (and looks like Margaret Lockwood), and has her own mind about things.  

Bogarde settles in a bit until yet another older woman shows up and seems like easy enough pickings.  

Bogarde and Lockwood are individually fantastic in the film, and together it's a fascinating bit of chemistry.  Lockwood's working class girl who married well enough is a great role, and my guess is it's so different (and she's shockingly old at 39 here) from what was happening on screen elsewhere, audiences may have been thrown off.  But she's terrific.  Bogarde gets to go full raving nutter by film's end, and you get to see his range over the course of the film from glances and moments of pause to talking to empty chairs and banging on them with canes.  It's something else.

It's not a movie that will change your life, but it's a terrific, taught thriller.  Check it out.

Musical Watch: The Man of La Mancha (1972)

artwork by the remarkable Ted CoConis

Watched:  02/26/2022

Format:  Amazon Prime

Viewing:  First

Decade:  1970's

Director:  Arthur Hiller

In high school I saw a college production of Man of La Mancha, and loved the show.  But somehow I never got around to watching the film.  By end of high school, I was familiar with O'Toole and Loren, so that wasn't a deterrent, and even back then, I didn't blink at watching movies from decades past.  I did plan to read Don Quixote on the heels of seeing the play, but never got to it.*  What has shocked me over the years is that the music from the show and the general spirit of a show I saw once at age 17 have stuck with me.

Even if you've never read Cervantes (and I have not) The Man of La Mancha (1972) is absolutely a worthwhile watch.  It's a strange movie, following the show's format, it's a play within a play.  Layer of illusion upon layer of illusion.  Cervantes is an actor performing the play he's written of Man of La Mancha in a town square when the Spanish Inquisition appears and, charging him with heresy, hauls him off to stand trial.  While waiting for his show trial, he cools his heels in a large, open dungeon with a multitude of fellow prisoners who decide to hold their own kangaroo court for him - and in order to explain himself, he sets about using the prisoners to portray a version of his play.

PodCast 186: "The Expendables" (2010) - w/ SimonUK and Ryan

Watched:  02/22/2022

Format:  Amazon Streaming

Viewing: First

Decade: 2010's

Director:  Stallone

For more ways to listen

SimonUK and Ryan relive some glory days by teaming up and trying to recapture the magic of when a man could be a man by blowing up an imaginary Central American country with a drug trade. We talk the melting pot action adventure that crosses multiple decades, revived careers, and firmly believes that Charisma Carpenter should stay off the market on your behalf even if you only check in with her quarterly and won't tell her anything about yourself. But, also, Eric Roberts has a plan that makes literally no sense but seems profitable. Like the My Pillow guy.

The Signal Watch PodCast · 186: "The Expendables" (2010) - w/ SimonUK and Ryan

Music:

Expendables Main Theme - Brian Tyler

SimonUK Cinema

The Signal Watch PodCast · SimonUK Cinema Series

Watch Party Watch: The Adventures of Buckaroo Banzai Across the Eighth Dimension (1984)

Watched:  02/25/2022

Format:  Amazon Watch Party

Viewing:  Unknown

Director:  W.D. Richter

A first viewing of The Adventures of Buckaroo Banzai Across the Eighth Dimension (1984) is not an easy task, I would assume.  

I saw Buckaroo Banzai on its release in the theater thanks to a dad who was not particularly nerdy and didn't care for nerd culture, but had certainly enjoyed serials and whatnot in his youth, and absolutely got what the movie was selling.  And I loved it.  Absolutely was into the movie.  I still love the idea of a team of folks with specialties standing between civilization and chaos.  And I got that the movie was funny and winky.  

But I also watched it over and over on cable and recorded on VHS for a bit through middle school.  What I didn't know was that the movie had flopped.  Horribly.  I mean, it made sense that my dad had to drive us across town to the one theater showing the movie, which was mostly empty.  But I also had seen Adventures in Babysitting in a theater so empty of anyone but me and my pals, the manager had come in before the movie to tell us "no monkeyshines", and that's an American classic.