Roller Watch: Unholy Rollers (1972)

Watched:  09/18/2021

Format:  TCM Underground

Viewing:  First

Decade:  1970's

Director:  Vernon Zimmerman

Probably most famous for its editor of all things (a young lad name of Martin Scorsese), it's a Roger Corman movie about the rise and fall of a wayward young woman with a temper who finds stardom in the Roller Derby!

Starring Claudia Jennings - a person I'm surprised hasn't had a movie made about her life - it's a no-budget production that mostly relies on the drift in what you could show on a screen in 1972, and that meant lots of casual partial nudity.  Which was what I associated with Roger Corman when I first knew who he was as a teen, and isn't really accurate.  

The movie also has, oddly, Joe E. Tata! of 90210 fame, and Kathleen Freeman looking like she doesn't want to be there more than usual.

Look, it's a cheap and trashy movie, and that's the fun of it.  I didn't tune into Unholy Rollers (1972) because I was expecting a David Lean film.  That it shifts gears and tries to tell a story about the perils of roller derby stardom is almost weird.  But if the movie lasts long enough, I guess it's going to tell some kind of story one way or another.  I'm just not sure why they went for a downbeat ending.  

I mean, it's not Mean Streets downbeat, but it's also not a "and she skated happily ever after".

Anyway.  It does a great job of explaining and showing off roller derby, and made me miss going to bouts.

90's Super Watch: Mystery Men (1999)

Watched:  09/17/2021

Format:  Netflix

Viewing:  Unknown.  More than 2, less than 6.

Decade:  1990's

Director:  Kinka Usher (his only movie)

This movie was unnecessary, but it had a lot of fun bits.  It just came out totally without context, and would make way more sense in a world with 20 superhero shows on and 5 or so mega superhero movies per year. 

It's adapted from a comic, which would have made a ton of sense in a comic shop in the late 1980's - 1990's.  After all, people in a comic shoppe have enough of a feel for comics to understand satire over the camp of the 1960's.  And it's kind of not a surprise that in a decade that saw 3 Batman movies and not much else, the idea of Too Many Superheroes and Wannabe Superheroes didn't exactly land.  

I read something that said "the film is too self-aware" and that, I think, is a big problem with it.  Everyone feels sort of like they're both aware of superhero movies, and camp superheroes, and they're doing a very long sketch about superheroes where they're kind of looking at the audience going "see?  see what I did there?"

Noir Watch: Drive a Crooked Road (1954)

Watched:  09/15/2021

Format:  Noir Alley on TCM

Viewing:  First

Decade:  1950's

Director:  Richard Quine

Before the movie, Muller pointed out that this film sure feels like the same story they use in The Killers from 1964.  If you asked me which to pick, I'd say to reach for The Killers, unless you have the option of the 1946 The Killers, which shares only some cosmetic similarities.  

But, Drive a Crooked Road (1954) was better than I figured, but still not setting the world on fire.  Starring Mickey Rooney as a lonely-hearts mechanic and would-be-race-car-driver, it hits all the beats of noir in a very small scale and is intended to give Rooney a new persona as far from Andy Hardy as possible. 

It doesn't hurt that a young Kevin McCarthy plays a bank-robber who sets up Rooney to fall for his girl, the Rita Hayworth-ish Dianne Foster, and get him wrapped up into a bank robbery as the get away wheelman.  

And, unlike most noir films, they do literally perform the action of the title and drive a crooked road to get away from a bank as we turn the corner into the third act.  

Foster is... okay.  She was clearly signed because she... looks good on film.  But she never quite knocks it out of the park in the charisma department or has that ineffable quality that would have made a really solid femme fatale role one for the ages.  She's not boring, and you get how Rooney's character can't believe how his fortunes have turned when she shows interest, but I can imagine the role in someone else's hands (Rhonda Fleming, honestly) and how much more they might have squeezed out of the part.

McCarthy and his pal played by Jack Kelly are a buyable counterpoint to Rooney's guileless driver.

What really struck me was the third act feeling like crime fiction of the era and earlier, with the quiet, doomed ending when I expected the usual Hayes-approved turn to escape and a happy life for our protagonist as his bad-girl turns good.

Nope.

Anyway, a great installment for this week's Noir Alley.

Waters Watch: Cecil B. Demented (2000)

Watched:  09/13/2021

Format:  Amazon Watch Party

Viewing:  First

Decade:  2000's

Director:  John Waters

2000 was a year for us at our house.  So, I'm not surprised that we missed the release of Cecil B. Demented (2000).  

You could easily release this film today and it would mean as much or more as it would have in 2000, when at least you were coming off an era of people *pretending* to care about indie cinema, if not outlaw cinema.  But here in 2021, the movie - if you ignore the casual violence and how you'd need to reframe it a bit now - is perhaps more relevant than ever as the studios have been purchased by mega corporations and warped the face of the film industry.  

Sneaky Snake Watch: Anaconda (1998)

This is an infograph of how much you'll care about each character

Watched:  09/10/2021

Format:  Amazon Watch Party

Viewing:  Second or third

Decade:  1990's

Director:  Some guy

I dunno.  It's a movie about people heading up the Amazon to find a lost tribe who come upon a snake that is huge and doesn't act like a snake at all.  It has JLo and Ice Cube.  So, how bad can it be?

I saw this one opening week in the theater, and what really stuck with me over the years was that Jon Voight is in it, and it made me realize very famous actors can make hilariously bad choices.  And every instinct Voight has in this movie is... so bad it's good.  Paraguayan accent?  Check.  Constant scowl?  Absolutely.  

I am sure there's some conversation that occurred that said "well, Voight's character is the REAL anaconda!  He's the one who sneaks up on you and surprises you with the kill!"  But that's kind of dumb and not right.

Friday Watch Party: Anaconda (1997)

In 1997, the Bros. Steans + Jamie were big fans of talking each other into going to see whatever goofiness was at Ye Olde Cineplex.  This movie fell squarely into the sort of thing we were constantly convincing ourselves we needed to see.

When someone said Ice Cube and Jon Voight are in a movie with a giant snake, you could sort of see a Ryan-shaped cloud where I once had sat as I sped myself to the movie theatre.  

And, yes, I was aware of Jennifer Lopez at the time, and I did not cry that she was in a lead role.

Anyway - it is a simple movie about a riverboat full of people and the giant snake which eats them.  That's it.  That's the plot.

Starring:  Jon Voight! J.Lo!  Eric Stoltz! Ice Cube! Owen "prefame" Wilson! Kari Wuhrer!  Danny Trejo!  and nerd favorite voice actor Frank Welker as the anaconda!  I'm not kidding!

Join us!

DAY:  Friday - September 10th

TIME:  8:30 Central/ 6:30 Pacific

FORMAT:  Amazon Watch Party

COST:  $4

LINK HERE TO WATCH

Brit Noir Watch: Cloudburst (1951)

Watched:  09/06/2021

Format:  Noir Alley on TCM on DVR

Viewing:  First

Decade:  1950's

Director:

There's trouble!  Right here in London City!

It's interesting that the French focused so hard on the American films they'd dub "film noir".  It's not like the British weren't making gloomy crime movies around the same time.  Night and the City, Brighton Rock and others point not just to the "noir movement" in England, but that the films made there weren't afraid to go incredibly dark.

Produced by Hammer (they did more than horror, kids), this one stars American Robert Preston as a Canadian in service to British Intelligence as a codebreaker still doing his work in the wake of WWII to help prosecute war criminals.  The film takes place just a year after the war, and Preston is married to a fellow intelligence officer whom he fell in love with during their time as POWs, where both were tortured.

They have a chance now at a happy, calm life, with a baby on the way, when - one night as they pause on a country roadside considering buying some property, Preston's wife is struck and killed by criminals escaping a murder.  

90's Watch: Without You I'm Nothing (1990)

Watched:  09/06/2021

Format:  TCM Underground

Viewing:  First

Decade:  1990's

Director:  John Boskovich

This is a weird watch in 2021.  I couldn't remember where Sandra Bernhard was on the cultural radar in 1990.  I certainly knew who she was as I was exiting high school in Spring of 1993, and thereby hangs a tale for another day, but in 1990?  Was she yet TV famous?  

I will say this - I do remember kind of adoring Sandra Bernhard in high school.  She was, like, a lot.  But for a late-80's/ early-90's context, she was candid and caustic and smart as hell, and there wasn't much of that on TV (and less so in real life).  And, she had some talent!

Wow Watch: Sorry To Bother You (2018)

Watched:  09/04/2021

Format:  Hulu

Viewing:  First

Decade:  2010's

Director:  Boots Riley

Man, I am not even going to try to summarize or reflect on this movie.

What I do know is that AmyC was going to make me podcast this, and it would have been one in a series of movies Amy woud have shown me that would have blown my mind and then she would have been, like, "hey - react!"  I love that she does this, but I think I always spend the first 5-15 minutes of those podcasts trying to get my thoughts in order.

Anyway - HIGHLY recommended.   You haven't seen anything like it.

Comics BioPic Watch: Professor Marston & the Wonder Women (2017)

Watched:  09/04/2021

Format:  HBOmax

Viewing:  First

Decade:  2010's

Director/ Writer:  Angela Robinson

Why do biopics exist?  

No, really.  Because I don't think producers really know.  

Taking someone else's life and presenting it to the populace in order to tell a story that you want to tell, when you can't be bothered with reality or facts, is a tremendous disservice to the people you're speaking for.  It also means that whatever story you're telling - the point of it, whatever that might be - is now hopelessly compromised the moment someone googles the subject of your film.  Whatever homily you hoped to make of a life isn't going to survive first contact with anyone wondering why the hell you changed so many things.  The hubris, man.

Look, I am not a William Moulton Marston scholar.  I've read possibly three or four books about the history of Wonder Woman over the past 25 years, and I've done my fair share of reading of articles on and offline on same, and therefore touched upon the people at the center of Professor Marston and the Wonder Women (2017).  

Cameron Watch: The Abyss - Director's Cut (1989)

Watched:  08/28/2021

Format:  DVD I bought on ebay

Viewing:  Unknown

Decade:  1980's

Director:  James Cameron

I would have been about 14 when The Abyss (1989) hit, and it arrived as a sort of prestige sci-fi film.  I remember seeing it in a packed house on a Saturday within the first week or two it was out (with my pals), and it was a*very big deal*.  

It became a staple of our rotation, but one you had to make time for.  The thing was 2.5 hours long.  It felt smart and somewhat relevant.  A Cold War story and not so displaced from our own time and technology, an underwater oil platform made sense - especially as run by roughnecks and fairly blue-collar technical crew.  

PODCAST: "Shallow Grave" (1994) - a Signal Watch Canon Episode w. MBell, MRSHL and Ryan

Watched:  08/21/2021

Format:  Amazon Streaming

Viewing:  3rd or 4th

Decade:  1990's

Director:  Danny Boyle

For more ways to listen

What happens when three narcissistic jerks combine their powers and slowly turn against each other? You get a podcast! We welcome new contributor MBell to the podcast who brings us a suitcase full of surprises as we discuss the mid-90's Scottish indie film thriller that was a crucial bit of what was going on in the 90's cinema scene. Join us as we root around the attic of our minds and recall how this movie fit in for us as young adults and our appreciation of movies!

The Signal Watch PodCast · 159: "Shallow Grave" (1994) - A Signal Watch Canon Episode w/ MBell, MRSHL and Ryan

Music:

Shallow Grave Theme - Simon Boswell

Canon Episodes

The Signal Watch PodCast · The Signal Watch Canon

Horror Catch-Up Watch: Candyman (1992)

Watched:  08/29/2021

Format:  Amazon

Viewing:  First

Decade:  1990's

Director:  Bernard Rose

Interesting.

So help me, from 1992 until about, oh, 2016, I thought Candyman (1992) was just another quick, cheaply produced horror entry along the lines of (forgive me) Leprechaun.  I really thought it was horny teens saying "Bloody Mary" in a mirror and getting murdered, and that seemed.... stupid.  I don't really care about a lot of horror, and that seemed like a good one to not care about.

In college (1993) I lived on the "arts" floor in Jester West, and our two study lounges had large murals painted on the walls from students past.  One room had kinda Nagel-esque pictures of pianos or something, and the other had a (not amazing) mural of Jimi Hendrix.  One day, a very nice girl from my floor came in there while I was studying and was upset she couldn't use the other room for one reason or another, and I said "well, you can study here.  I'm just reading." and she said "Nope.  That mural looks like Candyman."  And I was like "from the horror movie?"  She nodded and backed out and that was that.  

Strong reaction, that, I thought.  

Regret Interaction Watch: "Burlesque" (2010)

Watched:  08/27/2021

Format:  Amazon Watch Party

Viewing:  Kind of first/ Kind of second

Decade:  2010's

Director:  Steve Antin

I had never seen the beginning or end of Burlesque (2010).  A few years back I had a barber/ stylist who had set up a salon in her house, and instead of the mirror in front of you, she had a television.  And one time I went in and watched a huge chunk of Burlesque, because she'd get distracted by the movie or TV show she was watching, and what should have been a 20 minute haircut (my hair is so boring, I call the style "The Continental"), turned into a nearly 90 minute journey every time.  

Anyway - she was into the movie, and I know lots of people are.  But I come bearing bad news.  Burlesque is a super terrible film that has so much money and star power thrown at it, it looks like it should be good and people kind of accept that maybe it is.  But it isn't.

Ed Asner Merges With The Infinite

Actor and icon Ed Asner has passed at the age of 91.

Asner was a fixture of television - I remember him on reruns of The Mary Tyler Moore Show when I was a kid, just like everyone else.  But he was massively prolific.  In no way do I identify Asner with a specific role or era.  He simply was a fact of entertainment.  

The most surprising role I saw him take was as the voice of Granny Goodness on Superman: The Animated Series.  I still remember watching the cartoon when Jamie was in the hospital and her mom was reading a magazine, and she looked up at the TV and said "is that a guy voicing that woman?" and I said "that's Ed Asner" and she put down her magazine and took in some Fourth World mayhem.

He had some kind of relationship with comics and sci-fi, because he also voiced Daggett on Batman: The Animated Series, as well as voices on Spider-Man, Freakazoid and certainly Disney's Gargoyles.  The last thing I saw him in was in Season 2 of Doom Patrol.  

But the man played everything, up to and including Santa Claus in holiday staple Elf.  Just one of those actors that when he showed up, we'd be pointing at the TV and saying "is that Ed Asner!?"  Always good, always spot on in whatever he did, and seemed like a delight of a man.

I'm very sorry to see him go.

Return to Swashbuckle Watch: The Mask of Zorro (1998)

Watched:  08/27/2021

Format:  Amazon Prime

Viewing:  Unknown

Decade:  1990's

Director:  Martin Campbell

Having had just watched 1940's The Mark of Zorro, it seemed like a good idea to check out other iterations of the character.  I've been watching episodes of the low-budget 1990's TV show, but the last big splash Zorro made at cinemas were the two films starring Antonio Banderas and Catherine Zeta-Jones.

The Mask of Zorro (1998) came out just as I graduated college, and was considered kind of a minor action triumph at the time of its release.  It doesn't speak to the future of superhero film, instead playing like the best of the best of the pulp-hero films of the 1990's, but this movie and it's sequel The Legend of Zorro, spoke to the weird world building and return to franchises that would become a staple of media by the 2010's.  

For some reason, this movie is about Don Diego de la Vega failing and the shenanigans coming to an end, with two decades spent in a jail cell.  It's frankly a lazy and unbelievable scenario that Don Rafael would not have seen Zorro killed, as bloodthirsty as this film portrays its villains, but it does prop up the rest of the story - which also doesn't make a ton of sense.  In the melee, Don Diego sees his wife accidentally shot, and Rafael yoinks the baby, taking her with him as he runs off to Spain as the Mexican Revolution of 1821 will unseat him and possibly see him killed by revolutionaries.  

Friday Watch Party: BURLESQUE (2010)

So, I used to go to this woman's house to get my haircut, and she took forever because she was watching TV or movies while she cut my hair.  And the one that kind of broke me was the 2010 attempt at being good, Burlesque.  I didn't see all of it, but I saw enough of it.

First problem:  your lead is not a professional actor.  

Second problem:  somehow the movie makes seasoned actors seem like they, too, cannot act.  

Third problem:  the movie was written and directed by a guy whose credits included doing, like, two Pussycat Dolls videos

Feature, not a bug:  the movie is complete nonsense.  

Starring:  CHER, Alan Cumming, Peter Gallagher, Stanley Tucci, Kristen Bell, Julianne Hough, and Christina Aguilera AND MORE

DAY:  Friday, 08/27

TIME:  8:00 PM Central, 6:00 PM Pacific

Streaming Service:  Amazon Watch Party

Link to movie here (it's working now, H)

Swashbuckle Watch: The Mark of Zorro (1940)

Watched:  08/26/2021

Format:  TCM on DVR

Viewing:  First

Decade:  1940's

Director:  Rouben Mamoulian

I'm fully down with the idea of Zorro.  Back in the 1970's and 80's, the character was still relatively popular as our parents had come up on Zorro movies and the Disney television show.  We got a cartoon and Zorro the Gay Blade.  I did watch some reruns of the Disney show, and in 1990 I watched the first season or two of Zorro on the Family Channel.  And, I quite liked the two Antonio Banderas/ Catherine Zeta Jones films.

Somehow I'd never watched this movie.  Ironically, I once owed dozens of dollars in late fees on the movie when I rented it in college and lost it in my apartment (it somehow got kicked under the bed), but I never got to see it before I found and returned it.  So, here we are.  

PODCAST: Jurassic Park (1993) - a Signal Watch Canon Episode w/ Jamie and Ryan

Watched:  08/20/2021

Format:  HBOmax

Viewing:  Unknown

Decade:  1990's

Director:  Steven Spielberg

For more ways to listen

and 18 year old me also noticed the movie had lizards or something

We were so preoccupied with whether or not we could talk about the biggest movie of the 90's, we didn't stop to think if we should.

Jamie and Ryan take you on a (nsfw) podcast 28 years in the making! Join us as we splice together opinion, facts and memories to recall the gigantic beast of a movie that crashed down on an unsuspecting public and changed everything! We'll talk about how this movie was a moment of evolution for the film industry and entertainment, and how we (J & R) became fascinated with a movie about a day at the park not going super great. And, who makes khaki shorts work.

The Signal Watch PodCast · 158: "Jurassic Park" (1993) - A Signal Watch Canon Episode w/ Jamie and Ryan

Music:

Jurassic Park Theme Revised - Jamie M. "Goldenpipes" Steans

Theme from Jurassic Park - John Williams

Jurassic Park End Credits - John Williams

Jurassic Park Theme Revised - I'm not really sure

Signal Watch Canon

The Signal Watch PodCast · The Signal Watch Canon

Noir Re-Watch: The Big Heat (1953)

Watched:  08/22/2021

Format:  TCM on DVR

Viewing:  Unknown

Decade:  1950's

Director:  Fritz Lang

It's possible to say that The Big Heat (1953) is one of my favorite films.  I've seen it plenty, will watch parts of it when it pops up on TCM or wherever, and I think about parts of it a lot when considering other films.  I found it when I was discovering Gloria Grahame, and she's absolutely part of why I always come back to the movie.  She's so dang good in this movie as gangsters moll Debby Marsh - a plucky girl who has compromised a lot so she doesn't sink back into poverty.   To me, while she's very different from movies to movie, "excellent" is typical for the era from Grahame- but some consider this to be her final "great" performance.  Okay.  Fair enough.  She had some issues.  But what a way to leave a mark in cinema.

But I'm also fascinated by the story of the cop who spends his days and nights "white knighting" and not participating in the rampant corruption of his police department, only to lose his wife and... snap.  Like, Glenn Ford's Dave Bannion is not okay through a big part of the film.  It's an unusual fall from grace for a Hayes Era film, and while Bannion never quite breaks the Hayes Code, he sure seems like he might here and there.  

It's also got Lee Marvin in an early role, just filling up the screen and seeming like a whole lot more than the psycho second banana he's supposed to be, and playing it with a cool believability that his peers on screen aren't yet able to muster.

Anyway, I've written about this one before, and it's be a kick to podcast at some point.  So I'll duck out here.  But if you haven't seen it, give it a chance.  It feels remarkably modern for something 70 years old.