Nintendo Watch: The Super Mario Bros. Movie (2023)

I officially entered a new phase of life on Saturday when I went to see The Super Mario Bros. Movie (2023) with a cohort of second graders in support of my nephew's birthday.  I'm now an uncle who goes to movies he didn't select.  It's a good thing.

I am not anti video games, but I can describe my relationship to gaming as "apathetic".   The how's and why's of this phenomenon are uninteresting and best served in a dedicated blog post.  But even when we got our first Nintendo Entertainment System, I didn't have any Mario-related games.  I was spending my money on comics and tapes at the time.  Aside from a brief flirtation with a Wii and Mario Kart, never got into it.

90's Watch: Chungking Express (1994)

As Jamie and I discussed after the movie - the 90's were the wild west for cinema in the US.  Indie cinema and the *flavor* of that indie movement were a truly big deal.  It was also a rich era for a semi-mainstreaming of international cinema as the same theaters that carried those indie pics also brought in some European film and Hong Kong cinema.  I'm not saying no theaters do this anymore, but it was much more a part of your standard film scene at the time.

And if you didn't see it in theaters, you might still find the movies for rent - maybe not next to Robot Jox at Blockbuster, but in the go-go 90's Austin film rental scene, I could walk across the street from my dump of an apartment and get whatever I wanted at I Luv Video.  

But, as mentioned before, I just never picked up the films of Wong Kar-Wai.  I was too busy watching Chow Yun-Fat kick ass or whatever.  I was still a dude in my 20's.  Grant me peace.

Tarzan Watch: Greystoke - the Legend of Tarzan, Lord of the Apes (1984)

this is the most pretentious possible Tarzan poster

Watched:  04/10/2023

Format:  HBOmax

Viewing:  First

Director:  Hugh Hudson

I can only imagine what the pitch meeting was for this movie, and I can totally see how it happened.  

In 1981, Hugh Hudson had directed Chariots of Fire, a movie that was a smash hit about pasty British guys running foot races and worrying about religion.  Like, you couldn't escape the movie, which I watched on TV once when I was sick as a kid and immediately erased from my memory.  But it was a big @#$%ing deal when adults went to the cinema.  

I'm sure it's great.  But it was an unlikely hit, and won Best Picture.  Career made for somebody.

So when the director of the footrace movie comes to you and says "we're gonna do Tarzan.  But now it's a prestige costume drama about how Tarzan is, in fact, a very sad ape man.  He is not a super-human living among men, continually pursued by hot women and fighting weird alien threats and large animals.  Instead, he's a kind of skinny French guy who does stuff you've seen apes do at the zoo.  But, you know, it's quite sad" I guess you trust and give that guy a sack of cash to give it a go.

Superheroes Every Day Watch: Man of Steel (2013) - Part 1

Watched:  03/26/2023

Format:  HBOmax

Viewing:  third?  4th?

Director:  Zachary Snyder

Well, Danny of Superheroes Every Day has started a podcast.  To kick things off, he's selected (1) the film Man of Steel (2013) and (2) me as his guest (!) for what is a 3-part discussion about the film.  

Even at three-parts of about 40+ minutes each, I'm aware of at least two points I didn't make, so that's to say there's a LOT to say about this stab at superhero flicks by the studio that brought you Catwoman and Green Lantern.  Sure, they did those Nolan-Bat-flicks, but we know who they really are.

ANYWAY.  Here's Part 1 (of 3) of Superheroes Every Day covering Man of Steel!

Watch Party Watch: Big Trouble In Little China (1986)

Watched:  04/07/2023

Format:  Amazon Watch Party

Viewing:  Unknown

Director:  John Carpenter

I framed this watch party as a "birthday surprise" as my birthday is next week.  So, until folks clicked on the watch party link, they had no idea what we were watching, so rather than me receiving a birthday surprise, I delivered one in the form of ol' Jack Burton.

To be fair, Big Trouble in Little China (1986) is a tough sell.  It's an action comedy that looks more or less like a straight action movie of the mid-80's and only occasionally winks to say "we're kidding here".  Also, by this point, 80's action movies were almost beyond parody, so having a lead hero who is all unsupportable braggadocio and a female lead who is an exposition-dumping, hard-headed crusader - you kind of have to listen to what and how people are delivering their lines to get "this is a joke".  

Explaining why something is funny, of course, makes it immediately not-funny.  And so Big Trouble in Little China is not a movie I've often shared with people.  But, you turn 48 once.  And why not enjoy a movie again you liked when you were 11?

It's just not to everyone's taste, or in alignment with everyone's expectations, and that's okay.  I would say that if you haven't seen it since you were a kid, it may be a very different movie than what you thought it was at age 12 or whatever.  

Also, we're still crushing on Gracie Law.

Prior discussion here.  

One of our first podcasts included discussion of Big Trouble in Little China.  

Noir Watch: Leave Her to Heaven (1945)

Watched:  04/01/2023

Format:  Criterion Disc

Viewing:  First

Director:  John M. Stahl

It's funny how certain films experience a bit of trendiness within the classic film community or film noir world.  But, here's the thing, rarely is the surge of enthusiasm unearned.  

Leave Her to Heaven (1945) was buzzy a year or so ago.  I tried to watch it on the Criterion Channel but occasionally Criterion blips when I try to watch it, and I was literally watching it the day before it left and gave up.  So I took a gamble and with the recent Criterion sale picked up the BluRay.  And I am not disappointed.  Appropriate buzzing, classic film nerds.

I have zero problem with a good, dark melodrama that bleeds into early noir, and, boy howdy, is this that.  Heck, I just like a good melodrama these days.*

The movie is about a woman (Gene Tierney) who, while going to spread her father's ashes with her mother and adopted sister (Jeanne Crain), meets an author (Cornel Wilde).  All are from Boston and find they enjoy one another's company and Wilde and Tierney fall for each other even though she's engaged to a politician (Vincent Price!) - which she breaks off long distance.  

JLC Watch: Prom Night (1980)

Watched:  03/30/2023

Format:  Watch Party

Viewing:  First

Director:  Paul Lynch

We decided to watch another Jamie Lee Curtis movie for a Friday party watch.  This one is a post-Halloween JLC, when I guess folks pegged her as a scream queen.  But this is JLC, so she never really screams, she just kind of kicks ass when she's drawn into the action.

I'd not previously seen Prom Night.  When Prom Night II was meme-ing a while back, I tried to watch it first, even though the two are utterly unrelated. At that time, the movie wasn't available for some reason, but now it is, and while a career retrospective of an actor like JLC who is constantly working is difficult, why not try to check off the boxes?  

The actual plot of the movie, if you break down what it is, is really good.  I liked it.  But, man, the execution was all over the place.  Some parts were really solid, and some just dragged on when the outcome of, say, a girl chased by a killer, is never in doubt.  At this point in the slasher cycle, I assume the audiences would know that?  I dunno.  I was 5.  

The set up is that a bunch of kids are playing in an empty building in 1972 and one of the little kids, while playing a tag-like game, falls from a window to her death.  Because kids are all sociopaths, they make a pact to never tell anyone they were there and the death is supposed to be tied to a child molester who escapes.

So, there's a lot going on in the first ten minutes.  

Flash forward to 8 years later as the kids are getting ready for prom, the death of the girl remembered on the anniversary - and maybe that molester guy has returned?  

Anyway - all of that is gold, and possibly culled from the story the movie is based on.  But, man, the movie itself is kind of weird and draggy from the set up to the last 30 minutes or so, which is really pretty good.  Consequently, there's 45 minutes of the world's boringest 20-somethings posing as teens, romantic rivalries that only kinda work, a Carrie-ish riff from a meangirl, and maybe too many characters who only ever raise up to the mark of mildly interesting.  

What you can see is that JLC kind of shines in the middle of all this without doing a lot.  She's just got star power, and is projecting waves of energy, which culminates in a dance sequence at the prom (JLC can dance, apparently!) and then when she takes on the killer.  

Leslie Nielsen is in this playing a straight role as JLC's dad and the principal of the school.  I have literally no idea why he is in this.  He only seems to have been there for a few days of shooting and gets top billing.  

If the movie could have been as consistently good as the beginning and end, I'd recommend it.  I can see why they went daffy with the sequel.  This movie is, in many ways, a tragedy dressed up as a horror film, and it makes everything kind of a bummer as the thing wraps.  But it's also not a police procedural, so I can see why it works as it does with high school kids at the center and cops at the periphery.

 

The Play's The Thing Watch: Deathtrap (1982)

Watched:  03/28/2023

Format:  TCM

Viewing:  First

Director:  Sidney Lumet

We watched Deathtrap (1982) in 2 parts, watching the first 30 minutes or so the night before we wrapped it up, finishing the last hour.  In between, I made comment to some pals that you don't see many movies about plays and the theatre, especially based on plays.  There are some, but not a lot.  There's a gulf in many folk's knowledge of Broadway other than that the tickets are pretty expensive when Spamelot! comes to town, but you pay it.  I expect this is a bit different for New Yorkers or Londoners, which an overwhelmingly vast majority of us are not, so movies have to be careful and ensure folks living in the suburbs know wtf they're talking about.

Still, you can do it and get away with it.  I can't name one of the movies we kicked around that I'd seen (Noises Off!, Rosencrantz and Gildenstern, Chorus Line) that I don't like.  Probably should have squeezed in Cabaret for good measure.  

And, of course, I'm a Michael Caine stan, and the co-star is Christopher Reeve.  Plus: Dyan Cannon!  

It's a movie with a small cast, with Caine on screen > 75% of the time.  Sticking to the stageplay, it mostly takes place inside a single location of an East Hamptons house - something I assume means something to people from NYC and only marginally something to folks from Austin, TX.  

It's Caine as a failing playwright of comedic thrillers, his wealthy wife Dyan Cannon, and Christopher Reeve, who has written a brilliant play on his first go.  Caine realizes he can steal the play if he bumps off Reeve and takes it, putting his own name on it.

The set-up and set allows for amazing staging with props left over from Caine's prior shows scattered around, also his vintage collection of weapons, etc... 

For a play about plays, it doesn't get too in the weeds, I think, even as it probably was making jokes I wasn't quite getting referring to the theater scene.  It also has a very tight grip on the mechanics of thrillers - as it both is a thriller and talks about thrillers, and sometimes passes through the looking glass in a single scene where it becomes clear the action is mounting even as the characters discuss mechanics as they perform them.

That is really the astounding bit.  Loved it.

It's a sort of light-chuckle comedy for the most part - that's part of the mix when you're also writing a script with the fairly serious business of murder for personal gain.  Cannon's character is a Simon character with daffy quirks you know aren't just set dressing, and tossing in a psychic with an accent is a lot, but in it's better moments the thing works splendidly.

SPOILERS

But the last scene was... not great.  Already it's hard to deal with a thriller that requires a wacky character to have what seems to be functioning ESP.  You've just entered magic into your thriller, plus a complete lack of boundaries from a stranger in a way that feels dishonest.  

Ha ha.  Got it.  She used her abilities to suss out the situation and made a buck off the two guys bumping each other off...  it's just not narratively very satisfying.  But it also feels very much like something in 1980 people would have found cute.  And cute is a weird f'ing turn for this movie to pursue in the final minutes of run time.  

Overall, I liked the movie, but it's really weird to watch something and feel like the movie absolutely fumbled on the one yard line.  Maybe a re-watch would get me to reconsider, but I don't know how inclined I am to a re-watch.

That said, Caine is typically phenomenal Caine, Reeve is fucking great, and Dyan Cannon is an absolute delight.

PodCast 238: "Vertical Limit" (2000) - a SimonUK Cinema Series Episode w/ Ryan

Watched:  03/19/2023

Format:  AMC ondemand

Viewing: First

Decade:  2000's

Director:  Martin Campbell

For more ways to listen

Why would we watch this movie? Because it's there! SimonUK and Ryan scale a mighty wall that is this 2000-era bonafide hit that has disappeared into thin air. Join us as we cling to the rock face of pre-Google movies, leap to conclusions, and feel our lungs filling with 90's-style action! It's not the Stallone movie from like 8 years earlier! It's the other mountain movie!

SoundCloud 

The Signal Watch PodCast · 238: "Vertical Limit" (2000) - a SimonUK Cinema Series Episode w/ Ryan

YouTube

Music:

Opening - James Newton Howard, Vertical Limit OST 

MacArthur Park - Richard Harris

SimonUK Cinema Series

The Signal Watch PodCast · SimonUK Cinema Series

Musical Watch: Gentlemen Prefer Blondes (1953)

Watched:  03/25/2023

Format:  YouTube

Viewing:  Unknown

Director:  Howard Hawks

Just a heads-up:  this movie is streaming for free on YouTube right now.  If you've never seen it, give it a whirl.  

I'm going to keep this short because maybe 2/3rds of the way through this viewing, I realized this would be a fine movie to podcast sometime.  So, regular podcast contributors, hit me up if you want in.

It's funny - for a movie that's very, very famous, I don't see the actual story or characters of the movie discussed all that much, let alone the themes, subversions, etc...  Maybe I just hang in the wrong circles.  They focus on Diamonds Are a Girl's Best Friend, which, fair enough...   Monroe redefined sexiness for the Western world in a single musical number.  But the whole movie is solid, smart and @#$%ing funny.

Anyway, if you happen to think Jane Russell and Marilyn Monroe are a generally good idea (and I do), this may be the movie for you.

greatest walking to a table scene ever put to film

Watch Party Watch: A Fish Called Wanda (1988)

Watched:  03/24/2023

Format:  Amazon Watch Party

Viewing:  Unknown

Director:  Charles Crichton

Well, this week is Jamie's birthday and this is one of her favorite movies, and it's also still adjacent to Jamie Lee Curtis winning an Oscar, so it seemed like a great chance to celebrate Jamies, so our Jamie picked this film to watch.

It was funny - we generally watch a certain grade of film for watch parties because we're all chatting, but the chat was pretty quiet as everyone was engrossed with the film.  In general I knew it would be a challenge as (a) it was a movie someone genuinely loved (b) it's a comedy, which is hard to comment on and (c) it's actually good, so what does one say?  

A Fish Called Wanda (1988) is hysterical.  And as followers of this blog and podcast will note, we love JLC here.  But, also, a while back, we recorded a whole podcast on the film.

The Signal Watch PodCast · 113: "A Fish Called Wanda" (1988) - Jamie, SimonUK and Me

Yeoh Watch: Heroic Trio (1993)

Watched:  03/20/2023

Format:  Criterion

Viewing:  Unknown

Director:  Johnnie To

As far as I know, I hadn't watched Heroic Trio (1993) all the way through since some point in college.  I know I saw it in the theater with JAL during a student sponsored film series where we'd all go to the old Hogg theater in the middle of campus and ignore the bats flying around overhead and throwing little batty shadows onto the screen.  I recall watching part of it with The Admiral and Steanso on broadcast TV in about 1996.  And I'm pretty sure I saw it again on VHS at some point.  Jamie tells me we watched at least part or most of it in Phoenix, which I don't remember - but apparently happened.  

The film has been very hard to find in the US for years now.  Or I would have bought it on disc - DVD or Bluray.*  But now it's on Criterion Channel as part of the "Michelle Yeoh Kicks Ass" collection that spotlights her pre-US produced films as well as Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon, which took her Bond-based running start and made her a full-fledged star in the West.

Heroic Trio is more or less a fantasy comic-book movie with some post-Burton vibes in set design, but nuttier and occasionally much grimmer than Marvel or even DC fare, featuring a story that would need tweaking to be remade in the states.  It's mostly vibes, and those vibes will change at the drop of a hat throughout the film as it can't decide if this is tragedy, comedy, horror film or what.  And a movie can contain all those things, but sometimes those movies also need to find a ramping up and down into the change of tone.  This movie is slapping down moods like playing cards.

Doc Watch: Money Shot: The Pornhub Story (2023)

Watched:  03/19/2023

Format:  Netflix

Viewing:  First

Director:  Suzanne Hillinger

This was.... fine.  

Like it or not, Pornhub was the 12th most visited site in January 2023 (as of this writing), and when people had some time off, maybe the 3rd most visited site in December 2022.  In an era where we've shattered the monoculture, it's possible Pornhub is the great denominator.

A few years ago, I listened to a podcast that discussed the history of Pornhub, how it impacted pornography distribution, how that impacted performers, etc...  I won't get into it here, but that podcast was 2017, and this doc more or less blows past *all* of that in about twenty seconds to cover more recent history.  Given the title and stated agenda of the doc, it's a wild choice.  This doc is in no way a complete history of Pornhub, it's a dissection of a specific moment for Pornhub that is already fairly well known, was covered in the press, and which receives minimal new insight into the events probed, the inner workings of Pornhub, or much else.

Brooks Watch: History of the World - Part 1(1981)

Watched:  03/15/2023

Format:  Hulu

Viewing:  Unknown

Director:  Mel Brooks

Hulu now has a series running called History of the World - Part II, which has participation from the 96-year-old Mel Brooks.  Jamie mentioned she'd never seen the movie, and I said "well, we can't have that" - even though I hadn't seen it since college - and so I put it on.

Right out of the gate, it's amazing how much this movie would not be made today.  I know that's something you see in every post or article about a movie made during a certain window, but the self-censorship (not enforced by a code or Breen office) that's crept in during the past 10-15 years is somewhat shocking to some of us who lived in the long, long ago.  That's not to say every joke can or does still land the way it would have 42 years ago, there's some that were not great in 1981, and there's some that just haven't stood the test of time.*  

That said, as a satirist, Brooks' "ain't I a stinker?" delivery still cuts remarkably well.  Whether you're taking the piss out of the self-seriousness of historical epics, actual history and historical figures, the folly of humanity through the ages from stone-age to French Revolution...  Brooks' eye for the absurd still works.  

My favorite bit remains the Spanish Inquisition, which - for a period of absolutely horror - has really managed to capture the imagination and create not one but TWO bits of classic comedy between the stunning musical sequence here and, of course, Monty Python.

I mean, there's so much to unpack here in commentary and the general "fuck you" baked into every moment is incredible, robbing the Catholic Church of its power and reminding people that Jews survived this bullshit, too.  Maybe I grew up on too much Bugs Bunny, but this kind of thing is a 1000x more effective in communicating truth to power than yet another shame-troll reminding you "actually" something is bad.

It's also a delight to see Gregory Hines having a grand time in this movie, Dom Deluise, the beloved Madeline Kahn at the top of her game, Sid Caesar, Cloris Leachman, Ron Carey, Harvey Korman, Pamela Stephenson (of Superman III fame), the voice of Orson Welles and @#$%ing Shecky Greene.

No one is going to accuse Brooks of not playing for cheap laughs, but it's the cumulative affect of what he chooses to cover and how that 

It doesn't work as well as some of his other films.  But it works on that High Anxiety level, which is "enjoyable, insightful, but not as sublime as Young Frankenstein".  

Anyway, the new series is on Hulu.  I watched the pilot.  It was hysterical.

*it's also depressingly necessary to note that showing a character (especially one who isn't our hero) engaging in bad behavior is not the same as endorsing that behavior. But that doesn't mean that the jokes don't feel a bit tired or still work

Chiroptera Watch: Bats (1999)

Watched:  03/17/2023

Format:  Amazon

Viewing:  First

Director:  Louis Morneau

So, I like a good movie about people being attacked by animals.  This is that.  It will not surprise you that Bats (1999) is about bats.  Attacking people.  And the people who are quite cross that they are being attacked by bats.  

Mutant bats, but bats.

So, anyway, it's about pretty much nothing else.  There's no real sub-text.  It's just a movie about trying to stop bats from eating you and the medley of challenges that arise in the pursuit of stopping bats.  No intentional analogies, but it IS about bats with a weaponized virus that is accidentally released, and threatens to doom humanity if not contained and.... ehhhhh.....  that reads pretty weird here in 2023.  

It borrows heavily from Alien and Aliens from sound FX to character choices.  The bats are shown in close-up, they are terrific puppets, and I have no notes.  Love the bats.  Well done.  The movie never lets itself think it needs sub-plots, so expect no romance.  But I do think they must have decided to do some green-screened insert shots in a few dialog bits, because it really seems like the lighting is weird and the characters are shot in a weird single mid-shot dead center of the frame dropping jokes or whatever.  Maybe the first go-round was too grim for what it was?

This isn't a criticism, but Lou Diamond Phillips was featured less prominently than I'd figured or hoped for - he's in it, but he's featured supporting. Our star is Dina Meyer, who was having a moment in Hollywood, but they chose to straighten her magnificent curls, and I am against that decision.  

she's lovely here, but just sort of bleeds into the wall-paper of 1990's young female white-girl actors

just look at those spectacular locks

Anyway - I actually liked the movie!  It did what I hoped it would do.  It didn't weigh itself down with misguided moralizing, and it set up an internal logic and stuck to it.  Animals got the upper hand for a while and the puppets were neat.

There's probably more to say about Dina Meyer as a star, but we'll save that for another day.  And certainly LDP, who is always good.  And there's a dissertation worth of discussion about the mononymous Leon playing "Jimmy" and the role of African-American males in horror and horror-adjacent films, especially in the late 90's as audiences expected tropes to be addressed.

 

PodCast 237: "Drive" (2011) - A Neo-Noir PodCast w/ SGHarms and Ryan

Watched:  03/01/2023

Format:  BluRay

Viewing: Third

Decade:  2010's

Director:  Nicolas Winding Refn

For more ways to listen

Steven and Ryan will give you an hour and twenty-two minutes. For that time, you're theirs as they talk a fairly divisive bit of neo-noir from a curious inflection point in cinema. Join us as we put the pedal to the metal and get under the hood of a cult favorite that dares to ask if you can really hammer home an idea, and is Albert Brooks just a cut up?

SoundCloud 

The Signal Watch PodCast · 237: "Drive" (2011) - A Neo-Noir PodCast w/ SGHarms and Ryan

YouTube

Music:

Nightcall - Kavinsky

A Real Hero - College w/ Electric Youth

Noir at The Signal Watch PodCast

The Signal Watch PodCast · Noir Watch

WWII Watch: Watch on the Rhine (1943)

Watched:  03/12/2023

Format:  TCM

Viewing:  First

Director:  Herman Shumlin, Hal Mohr (uncredited)

I had never seen Watch on the Rhine (1943), which is a bit odd.  It stars Bette Davis, who is tops in my book.  But, the real reason is: back in the early 1990's I was a high school drama kid.  In the spring of 1992, I worked tech support and understudy on Watch on the Rhine, which my school took to UIL One-Act Play competition.  We trimmed the show down to a 40 minute version of the 1941 stage play,* which I guess I ran through dozens and dozens of times.

The play was a formative experience  for multiple reasons, not least of which included pondering the content of the play every day for months on end.  But, still, I was sixteen when I read the play and just turned 17 when the experience was over.  So my perspective was widened but life hadn't come at me.  I didn't yet fully grasp the forces at work, what had happened in the decade or more before the war, how WWI led directly to WWII, and that the world is not a simple place and always 100 times more complex than you believe at first blush, ways that inform the movie and play.

Noir Watch: The Killers (1946)

Watched:  03/10/2023

Format:  Amazon Watch Party

Viewing:  Fourth?

Director:  Robert Siodmak

Way back sometime in high school I read the short story The Killers by Hemingway, and like most 17 year olds reading Hemingway, it hit me over the head like a sledgehammer.*  It's a taught bit about the nature of the inevitable - by those who dole it out, those on the receiving end, and those caught up in its wake.  

About twenty years after publication of Hemingway's story, it was adapted into a film starring a fresh-faced actor by the name of Burt Lancaster.  Lancaster hadn't really acted before, but he walked into movies with a natural talent, charisma and muscley torso that kept him working long enough that I knew him as one of the retirement age gangsters in Tough Guys released 4 decades later.   

The movie also introduced Ava Gardner to mass audiences, and broke her as a major star for decades to come.  Bonus: If you need to get an idea of what to put next to "femme fatale" in the dictionary, Gardner's Kitty Collins is a phenomenal example (then put Jane Greer next to her).  

But the movie opens on an empty small-town street with two men in the forms of William Conrad and Charles McGraw entering a cafe and - for the next ten minutes the movie mostly re-creates the scene from the short story, nearly word-for-word, minus some racial slurs and some logistical stuff.  And, if you were a 17-year-old once who read Hemingway, its wild to see Nick Adams as a minor supporting character in a movie.

It's a hell of a scene.  Taught stuff that movies have been trying to recreate now for almost 80 years - almost 100 if you count back to the release of the short story.

The rest of the film has the tough chore of going back and starting at the beginning and working its way back to the opening sequence.  Eventually, it earns the sequence, but the tone never quite matches the first ten minute again.  Using the flashback-via-investigator framing made famous by Citizen Kane (released 5 years earlier) the movie relies on Edmond O'Brien to play an insurance investigator trying to find out why a man set up a woman he met once as his life-insurance beneficiary.  But I'll be dipped if I can say what he's actually investigating and why.  It seems like he answers work-related questions by the film's halfway point.  I don't know if he was looking to deny the payout or recover the money the Swede took.

What the film does do is create a good detective story infused with what would become hallmarks of noir.  Femme fatales.  Flashbacks.  Disposable hoods.  Character actors being characters.  A scramble for money.  Low-level gang bosses with more hair tonic than brains.  And all the secrets to come spilling out in the final reel as no one escapes their fate.  The only thing it's missing is Elisha Cook Jr. 

Anyway, I very much enjoyed a rewatch.  It's a kick of a movie.

*my understanding from social media is that Hemingway is no longer fashionable with the kids because (gestures at everything about Hemingway).  

PodCast 236: "Elvis" (2022) - a rock n' roll episode w/ SimonUK and Ryan

Watched:  03/06/2023

Format:  HBOmax

Viewing: First

Decade:  2020's

Director:  Baz Luhrmann

For more ways to listen

Your two hunks o' burnin' love take on the Luhrmann-ized retelling of the life of The King. We ponder the nature of biopics, fame, Dutch accents, appropriate management fees, pink suits and the power of shaking one's hips. It's another Oscar-contender episode!

SoundCloud 

The Signal Watch PodCast · 236: "Elvis" (2022) - a rock n' roll episode w/ SimonUK and Ryan

YouTube

Music:

That's All Right - Elvis Presley 

Unchained Meldoy - Elvis Presley 

PodCast 235: "Top Gun: Maverick" (2022) - a high-flying SimonUK and Ryan PodCast

Watched:  02/19/2023

Format:  Amazon?

Viewing: First

Decade:  2020's

Director:  Joseph Kosinski

For more ways to listen

Simon and Ryan feel the need for speed! These two misfits should be thrown out of podcasting, but they're just too damn good. Instead, they're being sent to watch another sequel 30 years in the making. Join us as as we talk this Oscar contender, why it hit, what it does right and how it gets a pass for what it does wrong. And, against all odds, they don't dwell on Connelly for too long.

SoundCloud 

The Signal Watch PodCast · 235: "Top Gun: Maverick" (2022) - a high-flying SimonUK and Ryan PodCast

YouTube

Music:

Main Titles (You've Been Called Back to Top Gun) - Harold Faltermeyer

Top Gun Anthem - Harold Faltermeyer

SimonUK Cinema Series

The Signal Watch PodCast · SimonUK Cinema Series