Watch Party Watch: The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes (1939)

Watched:  08/19/2022

Format:  Amazon Watch Party

Viewing:  First

Decade:  1930's

Director:  Alfred Werker

Well.  What's not to like, really?  

If you like Holmes books, this is... close-ish.  Basil Rathbone and Nigel Bruce are kind of the model for on-screen Holmes and Watson.  There's a great villain in Moriarty.  And a young Ida Lupino is charming as hell at the center of it all.  

What's amazing is how undated the film feels some 80 years later.  You can imagine all of this as the plot and performances in a modern Sherlock retelling,  And maybe that's because they made 14 of these movies in the span of less than a decade - not quite a serial, but certainly a series that left enough of an impact that this was how it was done until the 21st Century decided "what if Holmes was not at all like Holmes?" in two separate series of movies and a TV show.

I won't say the movie was flawless, but it was very, very *fun*, which is what I'm looking for in my Holmes reading or adaptations.  Give me a Holmes and Watson on the case, and a mystery I can't solve on my own, and I'll come back for more.

It will *surely* annoy Jamie that now that I know there are 13 more of these, I'm gonna watch them.  But she knew what I was about when she married me, so.

Friday Watch Party: The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes (1939)

I have never seen a Basil Rathbone Sherlock Holmes film, and now I found out a very young Ida Lupino co-stars in this particular movie.  

Look, I'm remarkably easy to please, in many respects.  Just put Ida Lupino in your movie.  Or Basil Rathbone.  Or Sherlock Holmes.  All are perfectly cromulent reasons to watch a film.

So let's do this.  

Day:  08/19/2022

Time:  8:30 PM Central/ 6:30 PM Pacific

Format:  Amazon Prime

Price:  $4

The game's afoot!  Click here to join in!

link is live 10 minutes before showtime

2020's Watch: The Lost City (2022)

Watched:  08/14/2022

Format:  I don't actually know.  Jamie put it on.

Viewing:  First

Decade:  2020's

Director:  Two guys named Nee

Sunday night we threw on the recent Sandra Bullock/ Channing Tatum romantic adventure comedy, The Lost City (2022), as it had received a generally favorable RT score and my brain wasn't functioning, anyway.

This movie is the platonic definition of "it's fine".  It is more or less exactly what you think from the trailers, everyone appears to be having a good time, it's got fewer laughs than what you'd like but is reasonably funny, and you'll have a frictionless experience which results in forgetting you saw it in about two months.

The movie co-stars Daniell Radcliff as a somewhat mad billionaire, the lovely Da'Vine Joy Randolph as Bullock's agent, a goofing Brad Pitt as a sort of mercenary, Hector Anibal as a henchman, and Oscar Nunez providing comedy relief in a comedy?

The movie is Romancing the Stone with no edges.  

Like, I don't really know what else to say about it - someone watched Kathleen Turner and Michael Douglas and said "let's do that, but different enough that copyright isn't an issue".  But it just feels like a re-write of a wildly popular movie that tries to make up for the lack of sexy sexiness with "hotness", reminding you Channing Tatum works out a lot and eats a lot of protein and Sandra Bullock is a fan of pilates and it's paying off.  

But, it's a romance novelist living out one of her own books in a vaguely Latin-American country with a jungle helped along by a hunky guy and there's a jewel to be had.  Romancing the Stone.  Everything else is just wing dings they put on it.

Por ejemplo:  There's also a dead husband storyline that feels very much like a 1990's movie that insists our lead occasionally acts, but it's also, like, a weirdly dark cloud over what's supposed to be a funny romp through the jungle.  It's made all the more confusing because no one seems to care about Bullock's dead husband or her grieving him or what seems to be clinical depression that screams "it is not funny that people are forcing her through the steps of the first act, she is a grieving widow suffering depression".  The cumulative effect was me wondering if the dead husband thing was an early or late addition to the script that didn't fit most of the rest of the script.

The movie should really just be about her figuring out her male-model doofus pal has an inner life and it's okay to bang him - something he seems up for from jump.  But he also has a weird and unwarranted relationship to the book series as a guy who probably has one photoshoot a year?

What flat out doesn't make sense - minus crippling depression - is why Bullock is kidnapped instead of paid-off and why she doesn't want to participate in Radcliffe's scheme, especially when he has unlimited resources and is willing to remove her from her tour she doesn't want to be on.  She states she was a practicing archaeologist at one point.  That seems relevant.  Like -having her just go and then realize she's in over her head is the infinitely more interesting choice. 

Pretty clearly the movie wants to be the start of a series, much like Romancing the Stone tried to do same, so we keep up with various players who will be our gang in future adventures, like Bullock's publisher, her weird friend in Oscar Nunez and Radcliffe, who will be Danny Devito in future installments. 

80's Watch: Pee-Wee's Big Adventure (1985)

Watched:  08/12/2022

Format:  Amazon Watch Party

Viewing:  Unknown

Director:  Tim Burton

I saw Pee-Wee's Big Adventure (1985) the first time in a theater in the Chicago area when we were on a family roadtrip and were staying with some people who had kids our age.  I mean, we were all a little obligated to like Pee-Wee Herman at the time, and I think there was a smidge of misunderstanding that this was a kids' movie rather than an all-ages movie.  

I recall thinking the movie was funny, better than I expected, and that I'd about needed a change of pants after the Large Marge sequence during which I'd leaped about a foot out of my chair.  

I've seen the movie a few times over the years, and every time I am reminded of the film's genuine greatness.  

I really don't know much about Paul Reubens outside of his work as Pee-Wee Herman, but I assume he's a pretty smart guy.  Literally no one else does what he does.  What was kind of lost on us at the time as kids, and what will be lost on kids new to the movie now is that Pee-Wee Herman is a sort of living embodiment of a Boomer nostalgia and retro goofiness that wasn't commodified in the way Gen-X nostalgia has driven, like, billion dollar Transformers movies.  He was more of a boy-man who still lived in a sort of Howdy Doody world of kitsch and camp that now looks like generic kid-fun, but was roughly coded to bend the intention of everything around him from Abraham Lincoln in the kitchen to a hobo bindle stick.

The story, the characters (Simone!), the settings (dinosaur truck stop, the rodeo) and the set-up are all amazing nonsense.  I mean, it's a movie that features a Santa sleigh with a Godzilla in it during a climactic scene.  The movie doesn't pause for life lessons, it just keeps upping the goofiness.  

Also, the casting is pitch perfect - at least it seems so now - with Jan Hooks, Elizabeth Daily, Diane Salinger, Cassandra Peterson, Mark Holton, Judd Omen, and more..!

 

Anyway - if you want 90 minutes of pure joy, I welcome you to it.  If you do not, take a pass.

Friday Watch Party: Pee-Wee's Big Adventure

Well.  We had a request, and while I can't accommodate every request, (a) I love this movie, (b) this person is in a way, and it wouldn't be right turning her down when this is all she asks, and (c) turns out this week is the 37th anniversary of the film's release!  Tuesday, as I write this, is actually the day it was released.

This movie - which is mostly *not* filmed in Texas - is the most accurate depiction you will ever see of Texas, in spirit.  

This movie has everything.  Adventure.  Romance.  Ghosts.  Snakes.  Morgan Fairchild!

So, join us for one the 1980's finest works of art!

Day:  08/12/2022

Time:  8:30 PM Central

Format:  Amazon Streaming

Cost:  $4

Click here to go to the basement of the Alamo!

Link live 10 minutes before showtime

Happy Birthday, Peter Cushing

Today marks the birth anniversary of English actor Peter Cushing.  Cushing was a familiar face to generations the UK, the US and across the world thanks to his starring roles on Hammer horror films, playing a truly demented Dr. Frankenstein across many films, a noble but crisp Dr. Van Helsing, Sherlock Holmes, and - of course - as Grand Moff Tarkin in Star Wars: A New Hope.  

Cushing has become one of those actors where I now say "Cushing is in that?  Well, let's watch it."  And I'm never disappointed in a single moment of him on screen.

He was also a very humble gentleman who came to fame in his 40's, and always seemed to have his feet on the ground.  Cushing was also quick to make friends with his co-stars and colleagues, and he worked numerous times with Christopher Lee, and befriended the likes of Vincent Price and others who were kings of the horror film world.  

I always find it intriguing that, in his downtime, Cushing made miniatures and models of all sorts of things.  

Anyway, happy birthday, Peter Cushing!  You are missed.

Aliens Watch: Prey (2022)

Watched:  08/07/2022

Format:  Hulu

Viewing:  First

Decade:  2020's

Director:  Dan Trachtenberg

I had not heard one word about Prey (2022) before my social media lit up when it dropped on Friday (two days ago).  Frankly, I ignored the chatter for half a day when I saw mention it was a Predator movie, which is not in the year 2022 that is something that gets me terribly excited.  I love Predator, but everything after in the franchise sort of exists on a sliding scale, and attempts to merge it with Aliens somehow devalued both.  

Suffice to say, I have not seen every Alien, Predator or Aliens and Predator movie over the past 35 years.  

Thus, I was inclined to ignore the movie til I heard the basic set-up and that some trusted sources generally liked it.  Some quite a bit.  

I finally watched the film this morning, and... yeah.  This is the best Predator related thing I've seen since watching Bill Duke dry-shave in a jungle.  They kept the scale manageable, they remembered we know the Predator set-up, and that the thing to do now is to make the movie have personal stakes for the lead.  They will be changed in some way by the experience, and not just because they experienced pants-eradicating terror facing an alien invasion.

Watch Party Watch: Death Spa (1987)

Watched:  08/05/2022

Format:  Amazon Watch Party

Viewing:  First!

Director:  Michael Fischa

So, I mistook this movie for something else I'd watched not too long ago, Killer Workout - the other 1987 movie about a string of murders occurring within an LA health club.  And, I assure you, this would be the best possible double-bill one could program, and one day I will make that happen.  The movies are similar to a point - but this one has a budget and actors you've seen before.  And a *lot* more shenanigans, but with fewer curiously placed yard-phones.

Anyway, I spent the first fifteen minutes of the movie utterly confused as this was *not* the same movie I'd watched, but due to the aesthetics of a 1980's LA gym, film grain of the 1980's all looking pretty similar circa 1987, and my face-blindness, I thought I'd stumbled onto a different cut of the same movie.  But it's not.  It's wildly different.

Is it better?  I mean - yes.  This one doesn't feel like guerilla film-making, and it has te budget to deliver on the things you were expecting in Killer Workout but didn't really get.  Namely, gory FX and a bounty of bewbs - just kinda strewn about in that 1980's way that says "look what we got to do.  Let's go enjoy some cocaine."

The plot is an insane mix of future-shock computer stuff that never really plays out, possession of humans AND computers, Dressed to Kill,  Psycho, Carrie and many things I am sure I missed.  Anyway, I was kinda blue I'd picked the wrong movie at first - but at this point I now stan Death Spa.  The back half of this movie is absolutely bonkers and you realize the first half just exists to lull you into a false sense of security that you know what this movie is.  And you do not.  

Somehow casting but not really starring one of the guys from Dawn of the Dead, Kirk's son David from Wrath of Khan, and the woman who played Teela in Masters of the Universe, it's got a "that guy!" vibe I particularly enjoyed.  I don't know who the actual leads are, and was frankly confused who some of the women in the film were supposed to be or what their relationship was to anything - but that's 1980's filmmaking for you.  It's about MEN.  In JACKETS.  Who PUSH UP THEIR JACKET SLEEVES.

There's also some amazing sound design where they do not care that planes are flying overhead and birds are furiously chirping.  I always like it when its clear they couldn't afford a re-record session and the real world invades your killer computer ghost movie.  

OH.  And there's a parapsychologist.  And a kinda sexy lady who is blinded by chlorine?  And the guy lives in a house seemingly designed by MC Escher and that's where he puts her, and despite her recent hospital stay he keeps changing her into very formal clothes and then 9 1/2 Weeks-ing her with asparagus, the sexiest vegetable.

Anyway, watch this movie.  Ten thumbs up.

Friday Watch Party: Death Spa

 

Well, it's time to watch Death Spa.

I have nothing in particular to say about this movie before we watch it, but there are deaths at a health spa.  So get ready to scream... and sweat!

Day:  Friday 08/05/2022

Time:  8:30 Central

Format:  Amazon Watch Party

Cost:  $4

Click here to get fit and maybe split... this mortal realm!

(link live 10 minutes before showtime)

Hitchcock Watch: Rebecca (1940)

Watched:  08/02/2022

Format:  BluRay - Criterion

Viewing:  Unknown, probably 4th

Director:  Alfred Hitchcock

Way, way back around 1996, I fulfilled an English credit class at university by taking "The Gothic Imagination" along with a handful of pals, including my roommate.  The class was phenomenal, but the funniest part was that the instructor used the first lecture to explain we would not be reading vampire novels, and explained the Bronte sisters to the class, and by the second lecture, I'd say 1/3rd of the class had turned over.  

Y'all need to read Wuthering Heights sometime, and Jane Eyre, because that shit sticks with you.  

Anyway, at some point the instructor decided not to teach and just showed us Alfred Hitchcock's American debut, Rebecca (1940).  I was *hooked*.  I mean, I was in film school, anyway, and was doing that Hitchcock worship thing, but I remember being all in on the movie.  

I'm currently reading Christina Lane's biography of film producer Joan Harrison, Phantom Lady: Hollywood Producer Joan Harrison, the Forgotten Woman behind Hitchcock. and had hit the section on Rebecca - which Harrison played a major role in securing for Hitchcock as he made his American directorial debut.  Recalling I had the BluRay in my possession, I popped it in.

Happily, I can report the movie is as good - or better - than I recall.

A young lady is travelling with a wealthy dowager as a paid companion when, in Monte Carlo, she stumbles across a seemingly haunted gentleman, whom her employer knows as a wealthy widower.  As her employer is laid-up sick, the young woman (Joan Fontaine) is courted by the gentleman (Olivier) and after some twists, they marry.  

Returning to his family home/ amazing mansion, "Manderlay", Fontaine has a hard time adapting to being a "great lady", but her primary issue is that she's dealing with everyone's memory of the first Mrs. deWinter, including that of her (ahem) devoted servant, Mrs. Danvers.  Meanwhile, Maxim deWinter becomes more of a pill by the hour, his own home seeming to haunt him.  Our new Mrs. deWinter fights inner demons, the history around her and the facts around the death of Rebecca.

If you read your Jane Eyre, all of this will have a very similar vibe as a common English girl enters the world of mansions and finds love but it is @#$%ed sideways.

Look, no one is more covered in film conversations than Hitchcock.  And Rebecca gets no small amount of ink spilled.  Personally, I think it's an earned rep.  Hitch is firing on all cylinders, he's got the power of David O. Selznick's machine behind him, and a perfectly assembled cast.  The film delivers some incredibly chilling moments covertly and overtly (Mrs. Danvers encouraging our heroine to leap from the window is... something).  

Frankly - I loved watching this movie again.  It had been so long, I'd mostly forgotten everything but the cast, some impressions and visuals, and the plot itself is an edge-of-your-seat affair for something that has no actual action, just discovery.  It's got some truly remarkable twists that manage no to feel false - no meam feat. 

The movie is gorgeous, and a reminder of the beauty of black and white when you apply subtle gradations - the interiors of Manderlay elegant, spooky and overwhelming.  It's a haunted mansion in the best way possible, and rather than an expressionistic use of extreme shadow, the film is gauzy, like scrims are overlayed at times.  

Anyway - it was phenomenal to revisit, especially in such pristine quality.  I'd only seen it on VHS previously.  

PodCast 207-B: "Elektra" (2005) - Part 2 - A Superheroes Every Day episode w/ Danny and Ryan

Watched:  07/16/2022

Format:  Amazon

Viewing: First

Decade:  2000's

Director:  Rob Bowman, I think

For more ways to listen  

To Listen to Part 1 of the Elektra PodCast

Well. Here we are in Part 2 of talking about a not-good movie. We continue on our journey of discovery as we track the progress of a ninja, a girl you kind of wish she wouldn't work so hard to protect, and people really committed to dressing up as ninjas. Plus, flying bedsheets as cinema. Let's talk flying electric snakes.

SoundCloud 

The Signal Watch PodCast · 207-B: "Elektra" (2005) - Part 2 - A Superheroes Every Day episode w/ Danny and Ryan

YouTube

Music:

Breathe No More - Evanescence, who is terrible, y'all.  I'm sorry.  Someone needed to tell you.

PLAYLIST TITLE GOES HERE

The Signal Watch PodCast · Marvel Madness - Movies and More...!

PodCast 207: "Elektra" (2005) - Part 1 - A Superheroes Every Day episode w/ Danny and Ryan

Watched:  07/23/2022

Format:  Amazon

Viewing: First

Decade:  2000's

Director:  Rob Bowman

For more ways to listen

To Listen to Part 2 of the Elektra PodCast

Join Danny and Ryan for Part 1 of 2 as we go way, wayyyy too long discussing the 2005 sorta-super movie about a girl, her little swords, and a regrettable career choice. We'll dig for movie treasure as we take you on a conspicuous road trip and watch our problems disappear into a puff of green smoke.

SoundCloud 

The Signal Watch PodCast · 207: "Elektra" (2005) - Part 1 - A Superheroes Every Day episode w/ Danny and Ryan

YouTube

Music:

Never There (She Stabs) - Strata

(I don't usually editorialize here, but this is the worst soundtrack I've had to choose from in 207 episodes.  Absolute garbage music.)

Marvel Madness Playlist

The Signal Watch PodCast · Marvel Madness - Movies and More...!

Amazon Watch Party Watch: War of the Worlds (1953)

Watched:  07/29/2022

Format:  Amazon Watch Party

Viewing:  Unknown

Director:  Byron Haskin

It's tough to beat this sci-fi classic.  And I write about it pretty often.  So I'll be brief.

Here.  Here.  Here.  and Here.  And part of why we even have a "mars" category here at The Signal Watch.  

I own a model of the Martian craft and of a Martian.  This movie is absolutely my jam.

Anyway, you can read prior posts about that, but it was indeed a lot of fun to watch the movie with other people, some of whom had seen it, and some not.  It's a high water mark of science fiction film for a reason, and I expect that won't diminish for some time.  

Even Spielberg seemed to only bounce up against this version with his 2005 version of the story.  But I think there's room for all the interpretations.  And all the movies (see:  Independence Day) that riff on it or rip it off.  

Anyway, it disappears from Amazon Prime Monday, so you have like a day or two to watch it for "free".

Friday Watch Party: War of the Worlds (1953)

I just noticed that (a) the 1953 sci-fi classic War of the Worlds is on Amazon Prime and (b) it is leaving this weekend.  

Look - this movie hit me like a ton of bricks when I watched it in middle school for the first time.  I was genuinely scared watching the movie - shit gets bleak - and couldn't look away.  It's an astonishingly gorgeous film even as lasers are turning people to ash and scorch marks.  

But, sure, dial in and have a good time!  I've seen this thing a dozen times, and it can take whatever slings and arrows we chuck its way.  

Anyway, join us for some space invaders bringing their A Game and dumb ol' humans getting turned into vapor.  

Day:  Friday - 07/29/2022

Time:  8:30 PM Central

Service:  Amazon Prime

Cost:  $0

Click here (Friday) to join us for some quality Martian mayhem!

I Forgot To Post On This Watch: Open By Christmas (2021)

Watched:  I dunno.  Let's call it 07/10/2022

Format:  Hallmark's Christmas in July

Viewing:  First

Director:  David Weaver

I watched this for two reasons:  (1) I put it on for two seconds and then it ended and I'd just watched a whole movie and that's how Hallmark movies get you.  (2) Erica Durance was in it, which was the fuel in the fire, I guess.

Judging this movie by the current standard of Hallmark Christmas movies, it was... fine?  Good?  Let's settle on "it was okay at doing what it set out to do", which is all you can judge it on, anyway.

Not long ago, Hallmark started letting themselves make movies that weren't one of five plots, so now you kinda don't know what you're going to get.  I mean, the same bland, friction-free spirit is there.  You know everything will be okay.  But these days they've learned that's the thing, not any particular formula of story.  Thinking about it, the Vandervoort starring Hallmark pic I watched last Christmas also had two narrative threads, so maybe that's the thing?  Cast Smallville actors and two plots.  I'm calling it now.

Watch Party Watch: Man's Best Friend (1993)

Watched:  07/22/2022

Format:  Amazon Watch Party

Viewing:  Second

Director:  John Lafia

I saw this movie in the theater and was mostly curious about it because I had absolutely no memory of what happened in the film.  I was 18 and it was during my college winter break so I was home, so I'm pretty sure I was sober, but...  man.  Aside from one very iffy CGI shot, I had nothing.

The basic gist of the film is that the world's most negligent reporter decides to break and enter at a science-place where it turns out Lance Henriksen is doing gene-splicing to create "the ultimate guard dog".  Why?  No idea.  We're never told.  But Ally Sheedy accidentally earns some life-debt from "Max" the ultra-dog whom she spirits away (hint: never take an animal from a lab) and brings to her home.  

She lies to her live-in boyfriend about where she got the dog, and - as a reporter - if she airs any of what she's got on tape, she is absolutely going to jail.  That's B&E and larceny.  

Well, this is ostensibly a horror movie, so it turns out the dog isn't just murderous, he can climb walls or trees, swallow cats like a python and piss acid?  I remembered none of this.  But I did remember there's one shot where they do the Predator CGI shtick where he's kind of clear and then you can see him.

I'm not a *huge* fan of complaining about movies having tone problems*, but this movie has them.  It genuinely feels like a 90's kid's film at times, complete with the neigbor kid who acts like he's 45 and 13 at the same time and wears the neon colors you saw kids wearing in movies and TV in the 90's, but not in real life.  

There's kids telling fart stories that are irrelevant to anything, but then bearing witness to cat murder and simply running away lest they be implicated in the cat murder, which is probably the only honest thing in this movie.

What is impossible to determine from the film's various murders and wacky cops is whether this movie is kidding or not, or a comedy or not.  It's not funny, but you can tell someone decided this movie should be "fun", so we murder a mailman, etc..  And you have to wonder if Ally Sheedy's insane negligence and obliviousness were supposed to be funny.  Oh, also, there's the implication of dog-on-dog non-consensual sex.  Which... seems played for laughs?  Well, the mid-90's were a weird time.  

In an era of "content" and rapidly forgotten films, it's easy to forget that stuff like this was hitting cinemas on a regular basis.  We had studios like New Line - who released this movie - who were like "sci-fi killer dog?  And no one suspects?  So... like one of those trash 450 page horror novels you get at the airport?  GREEN LIGHT."  I mean, this is a $6 million movie.  There are about four sets, and the rest is spent on talent, which is kind of sweet, actually.  And they made a profit of some sort if Wikipedia is to be believed.

But, make no mistake - this movie is absolutely terrible.  

*it usually tells me more about a viewer's expectations of the way they think a movie is supposed to be versus what the movie is

Friday Watch Party: Man's Best Friend

This is a movie about having a dog, Ally Sheedy, Lance Henriksen and this newfangled thing called "CGI".  

Winter of 1993, I saw this in the theater.  It's basically competent, and has a doggy you can cheer for.

You may be saying to yourself "isn't this Short Circuit having a baby with a Dean Koontz novel?" and you'd be right.  It's the sort of low-grade non-horror that the late 80's and 90's kicked around a lot.  

It's a mid-low-budget thriller about a mutant dog!  Maybe a robot?  I can't remember.   And the Ally Sheedy who loves him.  What's not to like?

Day:  Friday - 07/22/2022

Time:  8:30 Central/ 6:30 Pacific

Format:  Amazon Watch Party

Cost:  $3

link live 10 minutes before showtime

FRIDAY - CLICK HERE TO SEE A VERY GOOD BOY

Ida Watch: While the City Sleeps (1956)

Watched:  07/20/2022

Format:  BluRay

Viewing:  4th?  5th?

Director:  Fritz Lang

I've written this movie up multiple times.  I really like it, and I like it more every time I watch it.  

It's a newsroom film from mid-Century America, with shades of noir - but the cast in this movie is unreal and worth checking out, and it's the last, great Fritz Lang film.  

Here's who you have in the film:

Dana Andrews, Vincent Price, George Sanders, Rhonda Fleming, Thomas Mitchell, John Drew Barrymore, Sally Forrest and...  Ida Lupino.

I mean, it's worth the price of admission just for the cast and director, but I dig the hell out of this movie. 

It's a workplace dramady, a hard-nosed newspaper/ media film, a suspense-thriller and absolutely an ensemble piece.  It moves at a newspaper movie clip, and you have to pay a bit of attention to keep up.  But if you do - the workplace drama is phenomenal, and while a fascinating look at "juvenile delinquency" as seen through the lens of the 1950's - complete with blaming *comic books* for driving a young man to murder.  

 If you're looking for how one keeps sex and shenanigans just off screen in a Hayes Code era movie, this one is a lulu.  And despite Rhonda Fleming performing calisthenics, Ida Lupino is the thing you'll keep your eyes on through the whole film. 

This was Jamie's first viewing, and she spoke up afterwards about how great Lupino's character and performance were as a nuanced character with her own agenda.  I'm in complete agreement.  Lupino takes what's on the page, which could have been words given to anyone, and absolutely elevates the role as smart, conniving, amoral and sexy as hell.

She also drinks champagne with a peach in it, and I need to look up what the actual hell is happening there.

Anyway - this is becoming one of my favorite films.  Just a good watch every time.

Cartoon Watch: Beavis & Butthead Do the Universe (2022)

Watched:  07/18/2022

Format:  Paramount+

Viewing:  First

Director:  John Rice, Albert Calleros

I remember watching fireworks on the 4th of July, 1993, and my dad threatening to smack me if I didn't stop muttering "huh huh!  fire.  FIRE!"  So it's a little weird that here, 30 years later, I'm still totally in for watching Beavis & Butthead Do the Universe (2022), which feels *exactly* like Beavis & Butthead of the 1990's.  And it's a reminder of the weird brilliance of the original concept, which used the idiocy of a very recognizable flavor of teen boy to comment on anything under the sun through boner jokes, one word responses and an inability to understand anything other than nachos, boobs, and things sucking or being cool.  

There's a dissertation out there in the wanting about how the show worked as meta-commentary, both in the discussion over videos and in sketches wherein everyone assumed the pair are following and understanding their agenda, but it simply will not process with our heroes.  I'm not sure the show is a prescription for living, but it is definitely saying something about us, what we watch, the world we've built and inhabit.  And that it's incredibly easy for morons to coast alongside us without us really noticing until they've fucked things up, and that does not make us geniuses.  

Also, it is a show about needing TP for one's bunghole.

Anyway - this installment picks up with Beavis and Butthead in high school in 1998 and manages to get them to space camp, then onto the space shuttle where things go south, through a wormhole into 2022.  Where they don't ever really notice they've passed through time, all in pursuit of the shuttle's captain with whom they believe they're going to score.  

Along the way, they go to college, they abuse Apple Pay, they consume nachos, and briefly go to prison.  

Highly recommended.

PodCast 204: "Evil Dead 2 - Dead By Dawn" (1987) - an Evil Dead PodCast w/ JAL and Ryan

Watched:  07/12/2022

Format:  BluRay

Viewing:  Unknown

Decade:  1980's

Director:  Sam Raimi

For more ways to listen

JAL and Ryan return to that cabin in the woods and take a listen to an old reel-to-reel sitting around. It's horror-comedy time with one of the finest, most creative and ground breaking films not just of the genre, but of film writ large. Join us as we talk the second installment in Raimi's trilogy and what the kids don't know.

SoundCloud 

The Signal Watch PodCast · 204: "Evil Dead 2 - Dead By Dawn" (1987) - an Evil Dead PodCast w/ JAL and Ryan

YouTube

Music:

Behemoth - Joseph LoDuca, Evil Dead II OST 

Hail He/ End Titles - Joseph LoDuca,  Evil Dead II OST 

Halloween and Horror

The Signal Watch PodCast · Halloween and Horror