Star Wars Watch: The Force Awakens (2015)

Watched:  12/18/2019
Format:  Disney+
Viewing:  Unknown
Decade:  2010's

I still like Force Awakens both in spite of and due to its many flaws.  It's a good level of goofy, and has a few great bits that supersede a lot of the clunkiness and retreading of New Hope.

I genuinely liked the characters a lot in this film, and cared about what happened to them.  The lightsaber flying into Rey's hand is the Star Wars stuff that gives me chills.  As was Finn lighting it up to protect his friend. 

It has it's fair share of issues, but overall - I liked it as an adult - and as a kid, I think this movie would have hit me where I lived.   I'm still wow'ed by how close to the plotting of Episode IV it hews (unnecessarily!), but I do appreciate the differences.

PODCAST: "Lady in the Lake" (1947) - Holidays 2019! - with Jamie and Ryan

Watched: 12/12/2019
Format: DVD
Viewing: Unknown. 7th?
Decade: 1940's

It's Christmas Noir! From a first-person-perspective! It's kinda weird, honestly! Join Jamie and Ryan as they discuss "Lady in the Lake", a movie about murder with a very twisty mystery, with a lot of the story taking place on Christmas! For some reason. And Ryan finally gets to talk about Audrey Totter, noir and whatnot.



Movie Trailer:


Holidays 2019 Playlist:



Gallery of Ms. Totter in Lady in the Lake (1947)

PODCAST: "Long Kiss Goodnight" (1996) w/ SimonUK, Jamie and Yours Truly! It's a Holiday Adjacent Special!

Watched:  11/22/2019
Format:  Streaming - Amazon
Viewing:  Second
Decade:  1990's

The Signal Watch hearts Geena Davis. And here she is! In a movie that takes place at Christmas - because it's written by Shane Black. SimonUK, Jamie and Ryan talk this mid-90's actioner that predates Jason Bourne movies but post-dates the Bourne books about a secret assassin recovering her memory as the baddies movie in.



Music:
Long Kiss Goodnight Intro - Alan Silvestri, Long Kiss Goodnight OST


Signal Watch Holidays 2019:

Christmas Watch: Gremlins (1984)

Watched:  12/11/2019
Format:  Alamo Mueller Movie Party
Viewing:  Unknown
Decade:  1980's

I saw Gremlins (1984) during its original theatrical run back when I was a kid.  I wasn't someone who watched any horror yet, so I do recall the movie scaring the crap out of me in one or two scenes, but as the same kid who thought Ewoks were *great*, I also loved me some Gizmo.

In fact, I started 4th grade with an official Gremlins backpack that had Gizmo screenprinted on the outside like I was Billy Peltzer chasing me down some Stripe with my little buddy.

PODCAST! "Go" (1999) - a Christmas Adjacent Holiday Spectacular - w/ Maxwell and Ryan!

Watched:  11/17/2019
Format:  Streaming
Viewing:  First
Decade:  oh, so 1990's

(NSFW) Maxwell and Ryan review 1999's indie darling, "Go", a movie which absolutely occurs maybe at Christmas, borrows the "Pulp Fiction" narrative structure and shines a light on shenanigans occurring in the greater LA area for hip young people.



Music:
Gangster Trippin - Fatboy Slim, Go OST
To All The Lovely Ladies - Goldo, Go OST

Signal Watch Holidays 2019:

Noir-ish Watch: The Mask of Dimitrios (1944)

Watched:  12/06/2019
Format:  Noir Alley on TCM on DVR
Viewing:  First
Decade:  1940's

Look, if a movie has Sydney Greenstreet in it, I'm watching it.  And I've never been disappointed.

Of course, this movie *also* features Peter Lorre, so, that's two great performers of the era.  Add in Zachary Scott in his screen debut, and I was positively jazzed to watch The Mask of Dimitrios (1944), a movie I'd oft-head referenced, but never seen.

PODCAST! "Jaws: The Revenge" (1987) - a Signal Watch Holiday Roundtable w/ SimonUK, Jamie and Ryan!

Watched:  11/22/2019
Format:  DVD
Viewing:  First
Decade:  1980's

(mildly NSFW) SimonUK, Jamie and Ryan hold a holiday roundtable to discuss "Jaws: The Revenge", which, for reasons unknown, takes place at Christmas. Join us as we puzzle through the chapter in the Jaws saga no one asked for, added psychic powers, Michael Caine, and a plot that doesn't even bother to make sense.




Holidays 2019



Holidays 2018

Hallmark Watch: The Christmas Club (2019)

The amazing Elizabeth Mitchell, partially blocked by some guy

Watched:  11/27/2019
Format:  Hallmark Channel, baby!
Viewing:  First
Decade:  2010's

Mostly I don't write up the Hallmark Christmas movies that I watch, because I don't really watch them.  I put them on and do other things, how I'll sometimes watch a 4 hour baseball game on a Saturday or Sunday.  You do some work or check email or talk on chat to someone while the movie is on.  And when you do look up, it's mostly a game of Hallmark movie bingo, teasing out what the new formula themes are this year (military, servicepeople - mostly men, and veterans have been big the past two years).

But The Christmas Club (2019) was one of the more expensive version of the formula, where they'd hired actors you may have seen somewhere before rather than the usual "who is that?" stars of other than Hallmark movies, assembled from spare parts found in a vat of pumpkin spice, Coach purses, bedazzled iPhones, Lululemons and Uggs.

McSteans Guest Post! Holiday Watch: The Knight Before Christmas (2019)

Watched:  12/1/2019
Format:  Netlfix
Viewing:  First
Decade:  2010's

Jamie came out of right field and asked if I wanted to live-blog a Netflix Christmas movie with she and her pal, Angel.  Well, of course I did, it looked terrible.  But I figured this whole deal was more Jamie's thing than your usual Signal Watch programming, so she should also write up the movie.  So, without further ado...
                                                                                                                - your host, Ryan


Last weekend, to kick off the holidays, Ryan and I (mostly Ryan) Christmassed up the house and then capped it off with a viewing of the Netflix Hallmark-style movie, The Knight Before Christmas (2019). Joined by my overseas friend Angel (hi, Angel!), we took to Twitter and made it a three person live-blogging extravaganza.

Woof. I don’t know that my expectations for this film were sky high, but I was honestly disappointed in Netflix. I’ve seen some decent original content there recently, and they’re not bad with romantic comedies. With the Hallmark channel turning into a holiday movie factory churning out cookie cutter romantic fluff, I felt that Netflix should be able to take a slightly higher concept plot, more money and talent, and produce something at least slightly entertaining. Silly me. It felt exactly like they took a discarded Hallmark movie and threw in some time travel to attract attention, then did nothing with it.

Whodunnit Watch: Knives Out (2019)

Watched:  11/29/2019
Format:  Alamo S. Lamar
Viewing:  First
Decade:  2010's

I have a feeling Rian Johnson is going to be, with this movie, one of those directors twitter decides they need to prove they think is overrated.  He hasn't made that many movies, seems pretty lucky to have done what he's been able to do (if you ignore how he scraped to get Brick made), and hasn't ever delivered exactly what people are expecting when they show up at the theater - up to and including The Last Jedi.

Noir Watch: Kansas CIty Confidential (1952)

Watched:  11/27/2019
Format:  Noir Alley on TCM on DVR
Viewing:  First
Decade:  1950's

Somehow I'd never seen Kansas City Confidential (1952), but if I'd known it starred John Payne, Coleen Gray, Lee Van Cleef and Jack Elam, I would have tried a lot harder to see it sooner.

A windy, twisty heist caper - this one is told from the outside as John Payne plays an ex-con who is accidentally/ sorta framed for a bank heist when masked robbers pull a job worth $1.2 million (that's about $11.6 million now), using a duplicate of his flower delivery van.

Murphy Watch: Dolemite Is My Name (2019)

Watched:  11/24/2019
Format:  Netflix Original
Viewing:  First
Decade:  2010's

Back in college my pal Shoemaker would wait til we were about four drinks in and then I'd turn around he'd have put Dolemite movies on, and so I vaguely remembered them from the heyday of the mid 1990's.  Between being four drinks in, not focusing on the movies and the passage of 2.5 decades, sadly, my memory of the movies was vague at best.

Bad kung-fu, stilted acting and gratuitous nudity were more or less what registered and stuck with me.  And, I never did listen to any Rudy Ray Moore records, just saw images of the covers.  I like blue humor as much as the next guy, I just never made the time.

When I heard Dolemite Is My Name (2019) was coming out, I decided to revisit the original film.  And, if you follow this blog closely, you'll note that there's no post for Dolemite from this year.  Because, honestly, it's a movie you should be watching with other people.  Watching it by yourself just feels kinda weird.  It is a *bad* movie, but it is a fun bad movie that asks to be talked over and discussed as it goes along.    And, yeah, my memories of bad kung-fu, stilted acting and gratuitous nudity were verified.  Way to go, 1990's brain cells!

Disney Watch: Frozen 2 (2019)

Watched:  11/23/2019
Format:  Alamo Slaughter Lane
Viewing:  First
Decade:  2010's

I liked it a great deal.

Doc Watch: Image Makers - The Adventures of America's Pioneer Cinematographers

Watched:  11/16/2019
Format:  TCM on DVR
Viewing:  First
Decade:  2010's

It's odd how little we talk about cinematography.  Of course we discuss actors and dialog.  FX are a big topic.  We talk about soundtracks and directors.  When we're feeling like showing some insidery-type knowledge about film, we'll talk editors.  But I'm not sure we always notice the names of the people who actually sit behind the camera, working out the actual look of a movie, which, as we're not listening to radio or watching a play, seems kinda key.

From composition to placement to depth of focus to lighting to movement of perspective... and probably 9 or 10 other factors I'm not thinking of, what we see in a movie is defined by someone who thought about every shot (in theory).  Sometimes it draws attention to itself, but more than 95% of the time, when we talk about a movie, we seamlessly discuss story and how we felt, basing it on any of those factors above, but how often do we discuss what the camera did?  Or where it was placed?

Noir Watch: Force of Evil (1948)

Watched:  11/12/2019
Format:  Noir Alley on TCM on DVR
Viewing:  Second
Decade:  1940's


I recalled liking Force of Evil (1948) the last time I watched in 2011, and it's hilarious to read my write-up from what I'd argue was pretty early in my dive into noir (were we ever so young, Leaguers?).  Apparently this was also my first John Garfield movie, and it's a heck of an introduction to the guy, but I knew Marie Windsor and was thrilled to see her appear (as one should always be excited to see Windsor).

But, dang, was I happy to see I was appreciative of the film back then, because rewatching it now, I was stunned by what a remarkable film this is, was and shall be, and am shocked - watching it now - that it doesn't have a deeper fanbase.  Hell, you can't buy this on BluRay in Region 1, as near as I can tell.

Concert Doc Watch: Amazing Grace (2019)

Watched:  11/11/2019
Format:  Netflix
Viewing:  First
Decade:  1970's/ 2010's

If asked to compile a list of the greatest popular American singers of the 20th Century, I'd assume Aretha Franklin would make the top few - if not the number one slot - for much of the US populace.

We lost Franklin in 2018, and it's unclear who can begin to fill her role in the zeitgeist, but maybe it's too soon, and maybe we don't need to.  Maybe she was a singular talent.

Shot in 1972 and unreleased until the last 12 months or so, Amazing Grace (2019) is an attempt by Sydney Pollack to record and capture the experience of Franklin recording a live Gospel album at a church in Los Angeles over the course of two nights.  Backed by a local choir and supported by the Reverend James Cleveland, Franklin takes to the pulpit and - as one would expect - nails every song before her.

Linda and Arnie Watch: Terminator - Dark Fate

Watched:  11/09/2019
Format:  Alamo Slaughter Lane
Viewing:  First
Decade:  2010's

Look, I'm on the record going to the mat for the first two Terminator movies.  And way, way less so for T3 and whatever the Christian Bale one was called.  And I never saw Genisys.  I did like the TV show, The Sarah Connor Chronicles.

WTF was that? Watch: The Little Mermaid - Live!

Watched:  11/06/2019
Format:  TV broadcast on ABC
Viewing:  First
Decade:  2010's

This "show" was some rough going, and I hope it's not how anyone would introduce their child to The Little Mermaid, stage musicals or entertainment in general.

In honor of the 30th Anniversary of the animated The Little Mermaid, Disney, for reasons that remain totally unclear, decided to show the original The Little Mermaid, but when the movie reached the musical numbers, cut over to actors performing the numbers on a stage in front of their big movie screen.

Look, I've seen The Little Mermaid maybe twice and neither of those times occurred in the past 20 years.  As with about 1 in 2 Disney movies, I just don't really click to the movie about a young, dumb mermaid in love with a guy she only met when he was wet and unconscious.  I skipped TLM at the theater because I thought it was for very young children, and missed the memo that this movie the thing to tell people Disney was no longer making kinda bad movies.  I finally saw it summer 1992, thought it was better than I expected, but was more into what Disney was doing when I did hit the theater for Beauty and the Beast in '91.

Sayles Watch: Matewan (1987)

Watched:  11/02/2019
Format:  Criterion BluRay
Viewing:  4th, I believe
Decade:  1980's

Back in the go-go 1990's, I stumbled across John Sayles, as one was want to do if in film school at the time.  People would name drop him as he had a rep as the same guy who wrote Piranha, Alligator, The Howling and other more mainstream flicks, but was basically funding his ability to also write and direct independent film.  It's something he still does (apparently), but given the number of times I've heard his name or seen it online or in print the past twenty years, he's fallen away from film-nerd discussion, I suppose - which makes me really wonder who else we've forgotten.

Hallow-Watch: "Frankenstein" (1931) and "Bride of Frankenstein" (1935)

Watched:  F - 10/30/2019, BoF - 10/31/2019
Format:  BluRay
Viewing:  Ha ha ha...
Decade:  1930's

Every Halloween I now watch both of these films.  They're literally two of my favorite movies - the sort of which I'd include if there was a Signal Watch Five Film Marathon in which to partake. 

Next year we're scheduled to talk about them during Halloween, so I want to hold off til then to say much more - and I have plenty of prior posts on these two films. 

Here's to James Whale and Gods and Monsters.