This is a catch-up watch, one of about ten crime movies from this era I didn't see because life is not always what it should be.
Anyway, I was so distracted, I didn't know who was in the cast or that this was a Soderbergh movie - and I like Soderbergh movies. All I knew was "Terence Stamp tearing shit up for 90 minutes". And, indeed, that is true. But, The Limey (1999) also features Peter Fonda, the perpetually underutilized Lesley Ann Warren, Luis Guzman, and an uncredited but terrific Bill Duke.
I'd actually had a bit of trouble tracking down I Love Trouble (1948), a film I'd seen often referenced in writing about noir, but it just never crossed my path. I've seen reference to the film being lost for a few decades, but TCM was able to air it as part of the 2021 TCMFF. Honestly - the print is not great, but I've seen worse.
The plot itself is a windy murder mystery and from the same school as a Chandler mystery, but with more than a hint of Hammett. The cast is headlined by Franchot Tone, a guy who was a bug movie star at one point, but I tend to know as "that guy who was married to Joan Crawford in the 1930's"*.
I absolutely cannot talk about the plot without spoiling the movie - other than it's very much a quality gumshoe caper with all the trimmings. Tone as our shamus is actually rock solid here. I liked what he did as "Stuart Bailey" - an enjoyable riff on a familiar sort of tune, and playing the fast-talking PI with the moral code working his way through the underbelly of society.
He's joined by a bunch of actors you've likely never heard of - although noiristas will remember Janis Carter from Night Editor, Adele Jergens from Armored Car Robbery, Glenda Farrell from Little Caesar, Steven Geray from Gilda, and Tom Powers from... everything.
I'd love to see this one again sometime to enjoy watching it work rather than keeping up with details of the mystery.
Way back around 2001 or 2002, one day I noticed a movie called Space Truckers (1996) was showing on HBO. If you've been hanging around this blog since 2003, then you know: I immediately tuned over and caught something like 30 minutes of it.
I was shocked to see name actors Stephen Dorff, Dennis Hopper and Debi Mazar in what appeared to be a mid-budget sci-fi comedy that I'd never heard of, galivanting around space in a long-haul space-truck.
I actually watched a cut of this film fairly recently (just in October), so I'm not inclined to write this up again. What I will say is that this was a more fully restored cut with several extra minutes that fleshed out the characters and whatnot. And - as happens often - while I certainly liked it the first time, I enjoyed the film even more on a second go-round, which confirmed my feelings on it from the first viewing.
Honestly, I thought the movie flew by at the extended 95 minutes from 80 and I figure this is the cut I'll reach for if I'm watching the film again.
Well, I've now seen The Apple (1980), the sci-fi, near-future dystopian musical religious and political allegory. And while watching, this is roughly how I felt:
Alfredo returns to discuss a movie that goes way back to make a household name a lot more understandable to us modern folk. It's a fabricated fantasia of a biopic about two guys with very different skill levels at their jobs, competition in the workplace, and what happens when you get notes on too many notes. Join Alfredo and Ryan as we take on a cinema classic, and get a little classical ourselves.
This one was kind of weird. And this post is mostly about how much I hated Blockbuster and didn't care when it folded.
Look, by the time Blockbuster Video went out of business, I'd intentionally not gone of my own free will into a Blockbuster in 10 years and had pretty much broken with Blockbuster as far back as the mid 1990's.
So, a feature length doc talking about the death of Blockbuster as some sort of tragedy that was just an accident but something we all loved? I was pausing the movie and making Jamie listen to me as I debated the film's non-stop nostalgia and love of the corporate behemoth, which - starting in the summer of 1994, I saw as actually very bad for movies when I tried to rent Breakfast at Tiffany's and (a) the clerk had never heard of it, and (b) looked it up and explained to me they used to have it, but they got rid of it. But they did have 45 copies of Pauly Shore in Son In Law.
Like, you don't have to be a snob to find that a little sad.
We are going out on a high note! By going for the lowest note. Universally reviled, and from what I've seen, this looks truly, truly terrible - we're watching this sci-fi musical whatever it is.
Anyway, this if the final Friday, so join us in the dark future of 1994 for a rock'n'roll fantasy that is sure to, uh... anyway. It's a movie!
This is... my third favorite Trek movie? Pretty remarkable for a movie that has very few ship-fetish shots and plays like a 3-part episode of the TV series. But, man, it just works.
I believe it was advertised as the final movie for the original crew from Star Trek before The Next Generation gang took over, but as an excitable 16 year old, I thought "nah, they just got their mojo back on this one. They'll make more."*
So, yeah, shocker, I am into a tight murder mystery set in space with the fate of the galaxy in the balance. Throw in ship-to-ship combat, several rad supporting cast members beyond the usual crew, plus Sulu as Captain of his own ship (and, my god, had they just given Takei a spin-off series back then...), \more wildly over-the-top Klingons in the form of Plummer's Shakespeare spouting warrior, Chang (love everything about this character) - and it's like Trek was just punching "Ryan will like this" buttons.
We're wrapping up our Friday Night Watch Parties this coming week, and maybe that's all for the best. For - I may never top Teen Witch (1989) as an offering. It's all downhill from here.
It's one thing when people make a movie and try and it doesn't live up to expectations. It's another when you can tell someone was pushing out garbage to take advantage of a place in the market and literally seemed to not care how the movie turned out. And that's being generous, because the alternative with Teen Witch is to accept that adults made this film and this was their moonshot, and then we have to wonder: do you know how movies work?
I'm not going to bother writing this up. Another terrific Lord & Miller produced animation with a terrific voice cast. Hysterical, moving, gorgeously animated... very glad this is out there.
But I figure everyone with a Netflix account will have seen it, so just go nuts on your own on this one.
I don't have kids, and I got this one. I imagine a lot of you parents were choking back some feelings watching this one.
I remember the trailers for Everybody Wants Some (2016) were almost confusing. They made no argument for why anyone should get off their ass and get to the theater to see the movie - a film about a bunch of baseball players at the fictional East Texas State University, kind of screwing around, and...
It seemed the ads almost counted on a knowledge of how Linklater's other movies worked, and counted on you wanting more with different characters. But in 2016, an all-male cast of dudes acting like dudes seemed almost tone-deaf, and the population who would be nostalgic for the college years circa 1980 was mostly home watching Downton Abbey.
Honestly, the first fifteen minutes or so - I wasn't sure I was on board. It *is* an all-male cast being dudes. I'd like to say college dudes are not that crass, but some sure are, and the things you let slide...
We'll be wrapping up Signal Watch curated Friday films soon - at least in a "you can expect Ryan to organize this every week" mode. I will do a movie this week and next week. After that, in the future, we'll do it again from time to time, maybe even monthly, but not every week. Certainly we'll be back for Christmas and Halloween.
Keep your eyes on twitter or this blog.
I genuinely appreciate the Friday night movie club and y'all trusting me to curate a collection of often terrible, terrible films. Y'all have gotten me through a really, honestly, difficult year, and I can't thank you enough. I hope it's helped.
As the world re-opens and things shift around a bit, I kinda need to reclaim my evening time - even Friday evenings. (I used to go to the gym! I used to leave the house! I think we can all envision a world where these things can happen again!)
SO, let's try and go out with some high quality films.
THIS WEEK:
A movie that always makes me think "I bet Heather would unconvincingly defend this movie", it's Teen Witch!
What if a sort of unpopular girl who was picked on by teachers found out she had amazing magical powers and DIDN'T use them to burn prom to the ground - but instead made her friend rap? Casually bent the laws of time and space and obliterated free will in others?
That's THIS movie.
(see, how much will you really miss me doing this to you?)
Back in the merry old days of first arriving at college, living on campus at UT Austin was a perfect sort of thing to do if you were a movie nut - or turn you into one. I could walk to Dobie Theater and catch international and art film, Hogg Auditorium was basically rented by a student society of some sort who brought in Hong Kong films.* The Memorial Union Theater was open at the time and programmed by some serious film nerds, so that's where, my first night on campus, I wandered down to see Tie Me Up, Tie Me Down with kids I had never met before but who lived a few doors down.
Anyway, I was not unaware of The Cook, The Thief, His Wife & Her Lover (1989) in high school. I was known to drive into town to go catch a movie at the River Oaks or wherever some interesting stuff was showing - and I may have seen the poster of Helen Mirren in lingerie and given the poster a longer than necessary look. Or maybe a cover in the video store. Anyhoo, early Freshman year at some point (I really think in the first weeks of school), we headed down to the Memorial Union and caught the film. And my brain kind of melted.
So, Voodoo Woman (1957) is a low-budget picture released through API that's more or less a jungle horror adventure aimed at teens, I think.
The plot gives us the ruthless Marilyn (Marla English) who wants GOLD in the jungle, I think. Anyway, she dupes a local barkeep into funding her as she talks her would-be boyfriend (Lance Fuller) into going out there, along with a hired guide/ tough guy (Touch Connors). But - whoops - they're headed for a village where voodoo magic is melding with mad science as colonialist scientician Dr. Roland Gerard (Tom Conway) is working with local tribes people who perform voodoo to (a) prove you can transform a person into a sort of Voodoo Monster, and (b) use science to keep them in that state.
I won't bother you with more details. It's a movie that is rigidly against more than three set-ups per scene, doesn't make much sense, but has both an AMAZING monster suit for the titular Voodoo Woman and Marla English is terrific as the scheming evil-lady at the center of the picture.
Go in expecting a movie-serial-level production and you'll be fine!
More PodCast than PodCast, that's our motto! Ryan and SimonUK sit down and check our emotional response to this 1980's favorite of design and theme! There's nothing artificial about how we chase down one of the best of the sci-fi genre that defined an aesthetic, crossed genres, and asked the big questions.
Clearly Hong Kong based and created melodramas are a bit out of my wheelhouse, but there's much here to admire, from the cinematography to the restrained, lovely performances of Maggie Cheung and Tony Leung.
I've been meaning to take in some Wong Kar-Wai movies for... about 25 years. Well worth the wait. I admit what triggered me to take a look was that Tony Leung will be in Shang-Chi, and I remembered "oh, yeah... some Wong Kar-Wait stuff is on the Criterion Channel right now..."
Anyway, will definitely watch again. Lovely, and I wish I'd seen it on the big screen.
