Marvel Repeat Watch: Avengers - Endgame (2019), Take 3

I'm ready for this buddy picture

Watched:  06/05/2019
Format:  Alamo - Slaughter Lane
Viewing:  Third
Decade:  2010's

Well...  I dunno what to tell you people.  We wanted to make sure we saw this again in the theater, and, indeed, we did.

Of course this time I noticed some new things, enjoyed some new stuff, appreciated what I'd seen before and generally had a good time of it watching the movie again.

The movie still flies by, and I'm still a bit drained by the time it ends.  I have a few corrections I need to make where I made some mistakes on the PodCast, so... you know, eventually we'll get to that.

oh, Pepper.  I can't quit you.

Noir/ Heist Watch: The Asphalt Jungle (1950)

Watched:  06/03/2019
Format:  Noir Alley on TCM on DVR
Viewing:  7th?  Unknown
Decade:  1950s

I know I throw a lot of soft recommendations around, saying "oh, you might like this" or "it's worth catching", but The Asphalt Jungle (1950) was one of those hit-me-like-lightning movies the first time I watched it, and, in a lot of ways, I've been chasing that same high ever since.  That viewing was way back in college from a rented tape on a 20" TV, and I've seen and owned various copies of the film ever since.  Frankly, when I just looked up the movie on this blog, I assumed I'd written it up 3 or 4 times, but, instead, I'm just finding mentions of it tucked into other posts.  So, it's been a while.

In some ways, in 2019 there's little new in The Asphalt Jungle - the film is one of those that reset the path for heist movies and created the template from which heist movies would flow from then til now.  But for a movie popping up just a few years after World War II, and because of the influence, it feels shockingly modern (especially for modern TV more than movies, which are largely toothless in comparison these days).  It's 3/5ths getting to and getting through the heist, and 2/5ths things going wrong and the fallout as our ensemble tries to sort out the mess they're in.

Noir Watch: Key Largo (1948)

Watched:  05/31/2019
Format:  Noir Alley on TCM on DVR
Viewing:  Second
Decade:  1940's

The notion of a bunch of folks hanging out in a hotel in the Florida Keys probably doesn't ring very "noir" to folks who start and stop their definition of noir with Jane Greer in large hats, but there's a sub-genre of noir that's "people in remote locations trapped in a building/ held hostage by gangster while some sort of event occurs outside".  In this case, the gangster is Edward G. Robinson and the event is a hurricane.

I recalled loving Key Largo (1948) when I watched it a few years back, and I believe it made top marks in my end of the year Krypto Awards as the movie I most enjoyed watching at home.

Y'all...  this movie held up just fine.

PODCAST! "Live and Let Die" (1973) - Bond Watch 05 w/ SimonUK and Ryan

Watched:  05/26/2019
Format:  BluRay
Viewing:  Unknown
Decade:  1970's

We get back to Bond with 1973's "Live and Let Die" - the one with the voodoo. James Bond heads to New York, New Orleans and the Carribbean in a herky-jerky thrillride! We take a look at what was going on when this movie was made, from the state of the States to our third Bond's debut - and, of course, how this looked in 1973 vs. 2019.




Music:

Live and Let Die - Paul McCartney, Live and Let Die OST


Bond Watch Playlist:

Action Watch: John Wick 3 (2019)

Watched:  05/24/2019
Format:  Alamo Mueller
Viewing:  First
Decade:  2010's

I'm not sure what to say about the John Wick franchise.  It is what it is.  A celebration of cinematic violence in a world set up specifically to support deeply stylized violence with no sense of consequences (despite what the movie keeps trying to say is the theme, but which, in no way, resonates with anything we're seeing).  Essentially a self-playing videogame, the movies are about the glamour of killing, and being unkillable in a world where the only real humans are a few named characters, with a sub-class of nameless henchmen, and then NPC's of the rest of humanity sort of appearing as shapes and colors the assassins can disappear into, but who aren't really there.

Noir Watch: White Heat (1949)

Watched:  05/22/2019
Format:  Noir Alley on TCM
Viewing:  Second (third?)
Decade:  1940's

Cagney made it big in films of the 1930's with breakout roles like The Public Enemy and Angels with Dirty Faces.  During the war, he had a massive hit with Yankee Doodle Dandy, but by 1949, he was back in tough-guy mode when he was brought on to play Cody Jarrett in White Heat, maybe one of the most famous outlaw films in American cinema.

Baseball Watch: Bull Durham (1988)

Watched:  05/15/2019
Format:  Amazon streaming
Viewing:  First
Decade:  1980's

I was about thirteen when this movie hit, and it was one of those movies that arrived that everyone else saw when it came out, but at the time I wasn't that interested in baseball or Susan Sarandon, so I skipped it.  Well, life changes things in some amazing ways.

I suppose if there's a marker to say "was this a good movie or not?" I can point to the fact that I put this on as I was about to do something else (edit a podcast) but was fiddling around before settling in, and just put it on to have something on for a few minutes to see what it was like, and the next thing I knew I was finishing the movie.

Kaiju Watch: Godzilla 1984/ Return of Godzilla (1984)

Watched:  05/21/2019
Format:  BluRay
Viewing:  Third/ First
Decade: 1980's

Way back in '86, I rented the American version of this film for my birthday.  And when I say "American version", it helps to know a bit about the original Godzilla: King of the Monsters from back in the 1950's.

Noir City Austin - Day 3 "Nightfall" (1957) & "Murder By Contract" (1958)

First, I forgot to mention that on Day 2, the TCM Backlot Austin Chapter met up at Noir City and grabbed a picture, and you'll see me awkwardly standing in the back.  Thanks to Jane, et al, for organizing.

Next: Upfront, I'll tell you, I only saw two of the four films on Day 3 of Noir City Austin.  This is not due to film programming, venue or any of that. I just had stuff I needed to go do as the coming week of work/life is set to be  busy one.  So, I was able to see the first two films shown on Sunday.

Noir City Austin continued exploring the 1950's, and by the late 1950's, the differences in style of dress, attitude and film-making choices between the first film shown on Friday night from '49 and by the time we hit boom-time/ post-Korea America in '57, a lot has shifted.  Hell, men aren't even wearing hats as a required feature.

Noir City Austin - Day 2: "City That Never Sleeps" (1953) & "Private Hell 36" (1954)

Watched:  05/18/2019
Format:  Noir City Austin at Alamo Ritz
Viewing:  First
Decade:  1950's

Long ago I had purchased tickets to see a baseball game in the evening, so I was only scheduled to see two films for Noir City Austin, Day 2.

The theme for 2019 was a follow up on 2018, which was Noir in the 1940's, year-by-year.  This 10 film cycle was tracing noir as we left the 1940's and how and why the films changed as we hit the 1950's as cultural issues crept into the films and television competed with the big screen and informed the lives of characters on screen.  And, by the mid-to-late 1950's, began influencing how movies were shot so they'd work on the television sets of the era as Hollywood looked to cash in on the secondary income stream.

Noir City Austin - Day 1 - "Trapped" (1949) and "The Turning Point" (1952)

Viewed:  05/17/2019
Format:  Noir City Austin at Alamo Ritz
Viewing:  First for both
Decade:  1940's/ 1950's

Eddie Muller is back in Bat City for Noir City Austin, our annual showing of films I'd never find on my own, and always can't believe the gold Muller is able to surface.   Muller isn't just host of TCM's Noir Alley weekly dose of crime, implied sex and moral gray areas - he's also head of the Film Noir Foundation.  Proceeds from the festival and merch sales go back to the FNF, who, in turn use the money to rescue films from obscurity and eventual loss.

PODCAST: "The Italian Job" (1969) w/ SimonUK and Ryan

Watched:  05/07/2019
Format:  DVD
Viewing:  Third
Decade:  1960's


SimonUK finally gets around to talking about one of his favorite films, a heist film about a scrappy team pulling off the impossible with cheer and good spirits. Honestly, it's mostly just a love fest for a movie both Simon and Ryan enjoy immensely.




Music:

Get a Bloomin' Move On/Self Preservation Society - Don Black/Quincy Jones, The Italian Job OST

The mentioned poster for The Italian Job that seems to have nothing to do with the film:

SimonUK Cinema Series:

Gen-X Watch: Wine Country (2019)

Watched:  05/15/2019
Format:  Netflix
Viewing:  First
Decade:  2010's

I wish I'd disliked this movie enough so that I could have a spoofy title to the post like "Whine Country" to tag onto Wine Country (2019).  I guarantee you, some bright-eyed reviewer has used it out there somewhere.  After all the film is about a bunch of upper-middle class to upper class women coming together to go through the entirely predictable steps of a "girls weekend"/ reunion film and all of the weirdly specific predictable beats (despite the fact that reunion movies are not my jam) that fall out.

People be having lives that are more complicated than when you're 21 working for minimum wage, y'all.

Noir Watch: Nightmare Alley (1947)

Watched:  05/12/2019
Format:  Noir Alley on TCM on DVR
Viewing:  Second
Decade:  1940's

I remember reading that film-reviewer Pauline Kael made it a rule to only ever watch a film once - maybe a practicality of her business, maybe a personal quirk (as in all things, it's only mostly true).  I think about this a lot, because - as anyone who has followed the blog or PodCast knows - I find returning to movies fascinating, both to see what my now-brain thinks of a movie versus what I thought of it then, and because of how those differences reflect on your own experience, making films something all the more personal.

I saw Nightmare Alley (1947) about four years ago, and I remembered thinking it was good - but not really clicking to it in particular.  But on this viewing, despite the fact I remembered the film fairly well, it just reached out and hit me over the head.  This is a brilliant, wonderfully crafted movie, tackling deeply sensitive material and plowing right through, and getting away with it like the low-level conman who inserts himself with the right clothes and patter - the movie sure looks like a morality tale and crime movie, while questioning the nature of anyone selling you salvation, spiritual insight or deep insight into your own psyche. 

PODCAST(s)! "Legend of Billie Jean" (1985) and "Pump Up the Volume" (1990) - Teens in Revolt! w/ Maxwell, Marshall and Ryan!

Watched:  05/02/2019
Format:  LoBJ - Amazon Streaming, PUtV - DVD
Viewing:  LoBJ - First!, PUtV - unknown
Decade:  1980's, 1990s

For more on The PodCast - where to find the podcast with your favorite service, etc...

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*NSFW* Maxwell and Marshall come into the studio to talk TEENS IN REVOLT!  It's "The Legend of Billie Jean" (1985) and "Pump the Volume" (1990), two movies where teens grab the airwaves and tap into the spirit of being a teen and find themselves on the wrong side of the law!  We take a look at two classic teen movies for our generation and try to decide: what are these kids so dang grumpy about?

Part 1



Part 2



Music

Part 1
Invincible - Pat Benatar, Legend of Billie Jean OST
Rebel Yell - Billy Idol, Legend of Billie Jean OST

Part 2
Everybody Know - Leonard Cohen, I'm Your Man
Titanium Exposé - Sonic Youth, Goo/ Pump Up the Volume OST



High School Movies

Way TL;DR - Tracking Superheroes from Source-of-Shame to $2 Billion Dollars in 2 Weeks

The kids today will never *quite* appreciate what Marvel pulled off, starting with Iron Man and continuing on with this week's mega-release of Avengers: Endgame.  But, more than that, they'll never really understand what it was like to go from an era where you'd stay home on a Friday night to see a TV movie of the week starring David Hasslehoff as Nick Fury.  Truly, any crumb of a glimpse of a live-action version of the comics you enjoyed was like a signal beamed from weirdo space and invading the lowest-common-denominator normalcy of broadcast TV.  Any cinematic appearance of anything even superhero adjacent was a reason to trek to the movies (a habit I am just now breaking, pretty unsuccessfully).

These days every basic jerk out there tries to claim nerd status for just *liking* something other than sports and *admitting* they have something they enjoy (heads up!  you cannot be a wine-nerd.  You can be a vintner, wine enthusiast, sommelier or lush.  Pick one.  But a "wine nerd" is not a thing.).   But in an era before Bryan Singer turned the X-Men into a box office smash, and the internet gave us hidey-holes into which we all disappeared and Watchmen made the 100 Greatest Novels Since 1923 list...   comics were for children.  Or for nerds, losers, the mentally slow, the emotionally damaged, perverts and delinquents.

Movies might come out based on graphic novels or comics, and sometimes that source was acknowledged - but I grew up in the 1980's, and my comics habit made the adults around me visibly nervous.*  Parents, teachers, etc... knew to be disapproving and angry about musical selections (thanks, Tipper!), but comics?  What were we even doing?

Workin' Watch: 9-to-5 (1980)

Watched:  05/ 03/2019
Format:  Amazon Streaming
Viewing:  First
Decade:  1980's


I was about five when 9-to-5 (1980) came out, and the theme song by co-star Dolly Parton was everywhere for about a year or two, remaining a staple of radio play to this day.  Because the movie dealt with non-space-battle, gorilla or robot related issues, and I think was an R-Rating in the era of G, PG and R, I did not see the movie at the time.  I was pretty sure then that it was not a sex romp based mostly on how many people went to see it (it was huge), and just never got around to seeing it as I grew up. 

Which is weird - I'm not a giant Jane Fonda fan, but I find Lilly Tomlin brilliant whenever she's on a screen in front of me, and... I mean, Dolly Parton!  If you don't love Dolly Parton, I don't want to know you.  And Dabney Coleman was a thing back in this era - people loved him (he might have been a great take on J. Jonah Jameson in a 1980's-era Spidey movie if a studio had gotten its ac together.  I'm just saying.)

From a purely sociological standpoint, it's fascinating to see a movie about the women of my parents generation who were going through the first phases of a lot of what we deal with today, but based upon the rules of the era where women were housewives, teachers, nurses and... secretaries.  And we've all seen the role of secretaries on Mad Men (or should.  Sucks to your GoT, give me ad executives drinking on the job). 

Peter Mayhew Has Merged With The Infinite

Peter Mayhew during filming of Star Wars

Peter Mayhew, actor who brought Chewbacca to life, has passed.

I was just over two years old when I saw Star Wars in the theater, and - like everyone - I loved Chewbacca.  How could you not?  A giant with a heart of gold, a loyal best pal, a co-pilot and a strong right hand - Chewie was the ideal buddy in a galaxy where you needed someone you could trust at your side, watching your back.

The scene I probably remember best from Star Wars as a kid was realizing how *tall* Chewbacca was when he was in shackles beside Han and Luke in the Death Star, and realizing the man inside that yak-hair suit was pretty much that tall, too.  I recall being about seven and measuring out how tall he would be with a ruler against my friend's bedroom wall while we stood on chairs (I have no idea how or where we got the figure for Chewbacca's height).

The other scene I recalled was Chewbacca and pretty much everything about the trash compactor.  Even as a wee kid, I found that bit terrific.  Ford and Mayhew had their schtick down pat.

In 2000 I saw Peter Mayhew for the first time in person - he was signing autographs in a longline at a Disney theme park where Jamie and I were honeymooning.  I didn't stand in line then, and I regretted it later.  Flash forward to about four years ago, and the same happened at a comic convention in San Antonio - and as I walked out, regretted I hadn't jumped in line. 

That I didn't wait is odd, in retrospect - when The Force Awakens was announced, I was possibly more excited to see Chewbacca and R2 back on the screen than General Leia or Han Solo - they would be the aged versions of themselves, but Chewie could be ageless, walking through these movies, one after another, no silver showing up in that fur. 

But, of course, the man who brought Chewbacca to life was now not a kid himself, and I was aware his large frame had aged hard - I'd seen him in a wheelchair, and gravity is a bear for us over-six-foot-humans.  I was not surprised when I heard he had a stand-in for all the walking scenes and was mostly the one playing the seated bits.  But I still figured Peter Mayhew would be online, a pleasantly upbeat and chirpy presence - that he'd put on a tux jacket for a premier somewhere in LA. and maybe I'd see him at some other con and get his signature this time.

I'm genuinely sorry he's gone, but I am grateful that he spent the last few decades as a genuine celebrity, knowing his face and name meant (almost) as much to Star Wars fans as the fellow he brought to life, and that he got to be a part of it all over again in both the Prequels and the latest trilogy. 

My understanding is that Peter Mayhew was an orderly in a hospital before being cast as Chewbacca in Star Wars.  It's funny how a single casting call and some luck can change everything. 

PODCAST: "Avengers: Endgame" (2019) - Avengers Kinda Chronological Countdown w/ Jamie & Ryan

Watched:  04/25 & 26/2019
Format:  Alamo Slaughter Lane/ South Lamar
Viewing:  First/ Second
Decade:  2010's

Jamie and Ryan went to see "Avengers: Endgame" twice in two days. We talk the epic conclusion to the first ten or so years of Marvel Studios, what worked for us, what challenged us, and how it fits in with the world of comics from which it sprang. Don't listen in if you're avoiding spoilers - because we've got plenty.




Music:
Portals - Alan Silvestri, "Avengers: Endgame" OST 

So, yes, I have now seen "Avengers: Endgame"

I expect Jamie and I will be putting a PodCast together on Avengers: Endgame, so... bear with us until that gets recorded, posted and edited.  We are seeing it again tomorrow, so we get 2x the chance to miss things, I suppose.

All I will say for now, in spirit of keeping everyone spoiler-free, is:  I didn't think any time was a good time to go to the bathroom, so plan soda intake accordingly.  It is a LONG movie, but dense.

And, I genuinely wasn't spoiled by toys or anything else on the shelf.  The trailers I've seen mostly covered the first 20 minutes of a 180 minute film, so...  lots of movie there to grapple with.  But Marvel has done a great job of keeping the movie under wraps.

1 SPOILER after the break...