Comedy Watch: 21 Jump Street (2012)

Watched:  05/15/2020
Format:  Amazon Streaming
Viewing:  First
Decade:  2010's
Director:  Phil Lord, Chris Miller


As it starred neither apes nor robots, I was never a watcher of the original 21 Jump Street when it was on TV.  I knew roughly what it was about, but I don't believe I've ever seen an episode.  Between this fact and the massive pile of comedy remakes that had been hitting since the mid-90's Brady Bunch revival, I was in no particular rush to see this movie. 

But, then I learned it was a Lord & Miller movie and gave it a shot.  All in all, an ideal Friday-night comedy with enough Lord & Miller stuff to make it really work.  The cast is great (special shout out to Ellie Kemper) and there's a ton of really good stuff packed into 90 minutes, even with some pretty pat "high school kids sure are different now!" stuff that's a little hard to buy with only 7 years passed since our heroes supposedly graduated high school.

Pretty clearly there was a lot more shot, as a few things are referred to and it looks like some unused stuff wound up in the credits.  Which makes me reflect on the assignment of Lord & Miller to the Solo Star Wars movie, and their eventual firing.  What did Disney think they were getting, again?

Anyway, the movie is exactly what you think it is, maybe funnier than you'd guess. 

Catch-Up Watch: Good Boys (2019)

Watched:  05/16/2020
Format:  Amazon Streaming HBO
Viewing:  First
Decade:  2010's
Director: Gene Stupnitsky

Look, the secret life of boys on the verge of teenhood is hard to capture.  The last time I remember thinking anyone got it was parts of Boyhood and Stand By Me.  It's the last time you're friends with kids who you might not have all that much in common with before you hit middle and high school and become more yourself.

Good Boys (2019) doesn't avoid that idea, but it does show the potty mouthed, sheltered dopes boys are at around age 12, with confused ideas about masculinity, an overpowering need to demonstrate their worldiness and maturity, and one foot firmly on the side of kid-hood and one foot on the side of becoming a teen.  In short, you're a @#$%ing mess.

I don't want to overthink what is a "well, this worked very well at least the first time, but maybe not so well on the second once the shock and surprise value is lowered" comedy, but this movie was, indeed, funny.  And I can just imagine all the explaining parents and those on set had to do with the kids (if they did any at all) about half the things in the movie.

Anyway, writing about what is and is not funny and everyone's sense of humor is all over the place, but some of this felt very familiar, indeed, from a certain age (about 5th grade).   A quick glance at Metacritic is pretty much a roadmap of how this movie just isn't going to land with everyone.  Some seem to think it's just being outrageous and that's bad.  Others seem to have a, shall we say, interestingly sociopathic idea of what *would* have been funny.  I will say, regarding one flavor of complaint I read - it doesn't hurt to know that one of the laws of comedy is stupid repetition.  Or, in fact, if you repeat something, it just gets funnier.  Sort of the way that if you keep doing something, it just increases the comedy value.

But, that's the thing with comedies.  I looked at Amazon to see what was on there, and, man, are there a lot of 90 minute movies out there that just look painful to watch.  And a lot of it is - I have no idea what world the filmmakers are living in where they thought "yes, let's make this movie and, from coast to coast, a lot of people will find this hilarious".  Like, sometimes you're just funny to your friends.

Anyhoo...  this is a very Rated-R movie, so do not watch with the kids. 

Kaiju Watch: Godzilla - Tokyo SOS (2003)

Watched: 05/14/2020
Format:  BluRay
Viewing:  second or third
Decade:  2000's
Director: Masaaki Tezuka


This Godzilla film is a direct sequel, sort of, to Godzilla Against Mechagodzilla.  But in the tradition of Godzilla movies, the humans in the foreground are not the same as those in the prior film, minus a cameo and a return of the same Premier of Japan.

This one follows up, basically, with the rebuilding of Kiryu - the Mechagodzilla built by humans to protect Japan - smartly made from the bones and DNA of 1954 Godzilla.  The flight team from the prior film is shipped off for additional training and so we get a new flight crew.

Sci-Fi Watch: Cocoon (1985)

Watched:  I actually am not sure.  Roughly 05/05/2020
Format:  Cable
Viewing:  Unknown
Decade:  1980's
Director: Ron Howard

I don't remember seeing Cocoon (1985) after about 1989 or so, but it was a surprise how much of the movie stayed with me on a rewatch.  It's also amazing to think that this sort of thing, which was a huge hit when it came out, would now be pitched as a stunt or aimed only at the Boomer crowd (and would certainly be derided as a fantasy meant to hurt Millennials somehow).

Kaiju Watch: Godzilla v. Gigan (1972)

Watched:  05/12/2020
Format:  Criterion BluRay
Viewing:  First all the way through
Decade:  1970's
Director:  Jun Fukuda

We're in that part of the Showa era of Godzilla where it's kinda for kids and every once in a while there's a bunch of samurai blood shooting out of a kaiju.  Godzilla v Gigan (1972) features about 30 minutes of WWE-style monster fighting at the end of the movie, so it's light on plot and eager to deliver what you paid to see.

Kaiju Watch: Godzilla vs. Megalon (1973)

Watched:  05/08/2020
Format:  Criterion BluRay
Viewing:  First as an adult
Decade:  1970's
Director:  Jun Fukuda


This movie is straight nonsense.

That's not exactly a criticism, but it is remarkable how, in a short couple of decades, Godzilla went from "manifestation of faults and failures of a nation coming back in the form of an unstoppable behemoth" to "giant friend to the children who likes a good bit of wrasslin' with other giant monsters".  As I said elsewhere, any time you see one of these movies and it stars a kid in shorts and a long-sleeve shirt, you know you're often getting a particular flavor of Godzilla that is knowingly goofy.

PODCAST: The Omega Man (1971) - Quarantine Watch w/ SimonUK and Ryan

Watched:  04/17/2020
Format:  DVD
Viewing:  Third
Decade:  1970's
Director: Boris Sagal


More Ways To Listen

We're in quarantine, and there's one sci-fi movie that's been on our minds. Join us as we talk about being the last man on Earth! At least the last sane man on Earth. Except for those other people out there living in the 'burbs. Anyway, it'd be nice to just drive cars off the lot without having to haggle.




Music:
The Omega Man Theme - Ron Grainer


Playlist:

Tweet Watch: Manos Returns (2018)

Watched:  05/08/2020
Format:  Tweet-a-long on Amazon Prime
Viewing:  First
Decade:  2010's
Director:  Tonjia Atomic

I don't know.  I don't know what I expected.

Somehow a return to "Manos"- The Hands of Fate, the 1966 zero-budget horror indie out of El Paso, TX, which had neither synced sound nor coherent narrative, and arrived in 2018'ish as a shot-on-video-but-not-great-video and featured simply too much dialog - was kinda just right.

Manos Returns (2018) features - and I want to get this out there, because I missed this prior to watching - the original actor who played The Master and the former little girl who played Debbie, now a grown lady-person still playing Debbie!  Take that, David Lynch and your 25 years later!

Much like the original, I don't understand the movie or what it is trying to do.  At times it seems like it wants to be a parody, and at other times, a straight sequel with some enhancements thanks to the power of video editing. There's genuinely more story to this movie, but with similar outcomes.  And more red bras.  Lots of red bras.

I dunno.  I didn't *not* enjoy seeing the movie, and it is definitely a worthy successor to Manos, whatever that means.  But, you know, beware something striving to be a sequel to Manos.

BTW - seeing this also told me there's a mini-market of Manos ancillary media being produced.  Debbie is going on to make a TV series, there's a Rise of Torgo movie out there, too.  And seemingly other things.  Anyway, proceed with due caution.

Noir Watch: Fallen Angel (1945)

Watched:  05/08/2020
Format:  Noir Alley on TCM on DVR
Viewing:  First
Decade:  1940's
Director:  Otto Preminger

This movie sort of felt like it was all over the place, or like parts of a few movies crammed together and held together by the twin powers of Dana Andrews and Linda Darnell.  Which is a shame, because Alice Faye, with whom I am not familiar, is good in this movie as well, but her plotline feels like it's sliced and diced til it leaves what looks like an interesting role as a sort of bystander on the sideline of her own story. 

Is it a Nightmare Alley look at carnival people and illusion?  Is it a Postman Always Rings Twice story of a girl stuck in a rut of her own making and wanting out, making a sap of a guy to do so?  It is a small town drama about spinsters and a travelling huckster?  It's got all of these elements, and you can see the lines where the stories are fused, but it does stick together.

Friday Night Tweet-a-Long: Manos Returns (2016)

God help us, we're going back for more.

• Movie: Manos Returns
• Day:  Friday May 8th
• Time:  8:30 Central
• Place to watch:  Streaming on Amazon Prime
• hashtag:  #manosdos

Start at:  00:00:08 - you'll see a lady with blonde hair and her eyes closed.  Just pause there.  We'll say "GO" with the #manosdos hashtag when we're all set.



Manos: The Hands of Fate (1966) is widely considered one of the worst films of all time.

Accordingly, I have seen Manos at least six times - at least once as part of an Elvira episode, along with Mystery Science Theater 3000, live broadcast with RiffTrax and at least once just by itself.

It's the kind of bad that leaves you feeling queasy and weird at the end of the movie, like you just listened to a madman rant for 90 minutes or accidentally drank some laudanum and are just coming back around.

I'm not a Masters-Level viewer of bad cinema, but I get around.  This movie, Monster a Go-Go, Birdemic and a handful of others were so bad, so inept in every facet of their production that they take on a quality of surreal outsider art.  There's no accounting for what went so incredibly wrong, but you have to admire that someone finished the thing and then said "yeah, the world needs to see this."

If you haven't seen Manos: The Hands of Fate and you've never heard of it, you move in better circles than I do, I guess.  If you haven't seen it and *have* heard of it - well, you're a goddamn coward.

I had planned to never rewatch Manos: The Hands of Fate in this lifetime or any other, and God willing, I will never sit down and re-watch the movie.

But....

In the mid-2010's, some intrepid film fans decided Manos could and would not rest easy.

This Friday, we're watching the sequel.  I know nothing about it.  Here's to embracing the lovecraftian madness waiting on the other side.                               

I'd tell you that you need to watch the original, but (a) if you haven;t by now, you won't, (b) I doubt it's useful and (c) I can only punish you people so much.

Here's the original trailer, anyway

Noir Watch: Beyond a Reasonable Doubt (1956)

Watched:  05/01/2020
Format:  Noir Ally on TCM on DVR
Viewing:  First
Decade:  1950's
Director:  Fritz Lang

This one hadn't really been on my radar, but with Fritz Lang directing - his final American film, no less - and starring Dana Andrews, and both coming off the heels of a movie I thoroughly enjoy, While the City Sleeps, I saw no reason not to give it a spin.  In some ways, and from an elevator pitch angle, the plotting is very similar to 1963's Samuel Fuller directed Shock Corridor, but Beyond a Reasonable Doubt (1956) is a different type of movie, even if the two films definitely share significant DNA.

Anniversary Watch: Hiis Girl Friday (1940)

this poster does absolutely nothing to convey what this movie is about

Watched:  04/28/2020
Format:  Criterion BluRay
Viewing:  Unknown - fourth or fifth?
Decade:  1940's
Director:  Howard Hawks

First - I'm adding the director of a film to my list of stats at the top not because I particularly adhere to the auteur theory of cinema (we can talk more about that in depth sometime), but because it's a somewhat interesting stat, and easier to decipher than who produced a film.  You can look up writers on your own.  I'll retroactively figure it out for all the movies I watched in 2020, but this is at least my second Howard Hawks movie this year, and I thought it would be interesting to spot trends in January 2021 when I do my numbers round-up.

Tweet-a-Long Watch: Battle Beyond the Stars (1980)

Watched:  05/01/2020
Format:  Amazon Streaming
Viewing:  Unknown
Decade:  1980's
Director: Jimmy T. Murakami, Roger Corman

I dunno, man.  It's Battle Beyond the Stars (1980).  It's a not-great sci-fi movie that hasn't aged particularly well. 

Mostly I had fun watching it with a whole bunch of folks on the twitters!  Thanks for showing up, every buddy!

One day we'll understand why that ship has a rack/ looks like a diagram of the female reproductive system.

Noir Watch: Night and the City (1950)

Watched:  04/30/2020
Format:  TCM on DVR
Viewing:  2nd or 3rd
Decade:  1950
Director:  Jules Dassin

I've seen this movie before, and, if someone asked me what I think makes for a pure distillation of one of my definitions of "film noir", ie:  a character who is deeply in over their head because of a character flaw - you have Double Indemnity and you have Night and the City (1950).  And it's possible Night and the City is the even purer dose of the idea - because unlike Double Indemnity, there's no sex tangled up in the question - this is just a broken guy who, as Gene Tierney's character Mary says "You could have been anything. Anything. You had brains... ambition. You worked harder than any 10 men. But the wrong things. Always the wrong things..."

The only mistress in this movie, which absolutely does have the "good girl" in the form of Tierney waiting on our protagonist, is his own sense of destiny and overconfidence in his ability to play the grift. 

But, man, fate is a bitch.

Live-Tweet on Friday Night (05/01) - "Battle Beyond the Stars"

On Friday night, join us for a live-tweet-a-long as we watch Battle Beyond the Stars, a movie I was led out of, totally freaked out, when I was five.

It is in no way scary.  I was a sensitive kid.


Watch at:  Amazon Streaming or other popular streaming sites
Day:  Friday, May 1st, 2020
Time:  8:30 PM Central
Hashtag:  #shiprack

We're going to start when I say GO on twitter.


Get queued up to about the 3 second mark on the movie.  Pause and wait on this image til you get the signal:

it is really hard to get a screengrab of an Amazon Prime video.  I am not spending time learning how to do it.  Your reflection may vary.

Then get ready to behold what happens when a small studios sees Star Wars, wants in on that money and decides "it's a western in space".  Then proceeds to rip-off a very specific, very famous western/ samurai movie.

But this movie has B-movie Queen Sybil Danning as a Space Valkyrie with the rad-as-hell mid-80's new-romantic band name of "St. Exmin".

I'm gonna fight on *her* team

Also stars George Peppard as the embodiment of my spirit, Robert Vaughn as Robert Vaughn In Space, John Fuckin' Saxon!, Sam Jaffe and the guy who played John Boy on The Waltons, Richard Thomas, officially killing his chances at making it to the big screen.  It also has a spaceship that, if memory serves, is trying to be both mother and lover to John Boy.

So, 8:30 PM Central time on Friday!  3 seconds in at that image above!

Ninja Dino Catholicism Drug Dealer Hooker Lawyer Doctor Watch: The Velocipastor (2018)

watched:  04/24/2020
Format:  Amazon Streaming Tweet-a-Long
Viewing:  First
Decade:  2010's
Director: Brendan Steere

It was amazing.

Russell Watch: The French Line (1954)

Watched:  04/23/2020
Format:  TCM on DVR
Viewing:  First
Decade:  1950's
Director: Lloyd Bacon

Hoo-boy.  Apparently Howard Hughes realized, after loaning out Jane Russell to Fox for Gentlemen Prefer Blondes (1952) and watching them make a mint, *he* had a Jane Russell under contract at RKO that he didn't need to loan out at all.  So, he decided to make another splashy musical about Jane Russell on a boat headed for Paris all on his own.  And if people liked a bit of sexiness, he was going to shove Jane Russell into even sexier outfits!  And he'sdrelease the movie in 3D!  Jane Russell would be dancing and standing around as if she were in the room!  You guys get it?  wink wink nod nod need I say more?

PODCAST: "Superman: The Movie" (1978) a Super Movie Special with Stuart and Ryan

Watched:  04/12/2020
Format:  BluRay
Viewing:  oh, you kidders
Decade:  1970's
Director: Richard Donner

Ryan is joined by fellow Superman super-fan, StuartW, as they take on the 1978 superhero film that made the world believe a man can fly. It's a discussion of how lightning was caught in a bottle and set a template that the better superhero films still emulate. It's a geek-out fan-fest as Stuart and Ryan fly high into the movie that maybe both of them have seen way, way too many times.

More ways to listen





Music: - All Songs from Superman: The Movie, OST, composed by John Williams

• Prelude and Main Title March
• The Planet Krypton
• Lois and Clark
• The Flying Sequence/ Can You Read My Mind?
• Finale and End Title March

Ryan's Random Playlist

Friday Night Tweet-Along: The Velocipastor (2018)

Description: After losing his parents, a priest travels to China, where he inherits a mysterious ability that allows him to turn into a dinosaur. At first horrified by this new power, a hooker convinces him to use it to fight crime. And ninjas.

Day:  04/24/2020
Time:  8:30 Central
Location:  Amazon Streaming
Twitter Hashtag:  #dinoninja

KAIJU WATCH: Godzilla, Mothra and King Ghidorah - Giant Monsters All-Out Attack (2001) AND Godzilla vs MechaGodzilla II

Watched:  04/19/2020/ 04/20/2020
Format:  BluRay
Viewing:  First/ Firstish
Decade:  2000's/ 1990's
Director: Shusuke Kaneko/ Takao Okawara


I am unsure what I'd heard about Giant Monsters All-Out Attack (2001) as a particular entry in the G-franchise, but it *seems* to be pretty popular.  Godzilla v MechaGodzilla II (1993) may be marginally popular with kaiju fans.  Arguably, GMAOA is aimed at an older crowd, and harkens back to the existential threat of Godzilla as first presented in 1954.  GvMGII seems aimed at a younger crowd, but still works pretty well.