Saturday, January 16, 2021
Noir Watch: The Strange Affair of Uncle Harry (1945)
Monday, January 4, 2021
Noir Watch: The Killer is Loose (1956)
Friday, January 1, 2021
Christmas Noir Watch: Cover-Up (1949)
Thursday, December 31, 2020
Watch Party Watch: Guest in the House (1944)
- 3 great 1940's hairstyles on lovely women
- 1 coocoo bananas psycho
- Multiple dum-dums who clearly never met a Mean Girl
- 1 Margaret Hamilton reminding you why it was hard for her to find work after Wizard of Oz seared her into your mind as a broom-riding funster
- 1 wife who is wildly tolerant of 1 husband who is clearly banging his model no matter what the script tries to tell us
- 1 man who has all the appeal of a soaked Ralph Bellamy that is, because filmed during wartime, the only man around sold to us as a real dream boat
- 1 bird pining for the fjords
Monday, December 21, 2020
PODCAST: "Kiss Kiss Bang Bang" (2005) - a Xmas Genre Xrossover w/ Jamie and Ryan
Jamie and Ryan talk the 2005 neo-noir by Shane Black and starring RDJ jr. and Val Kilmer. We hadn't seen it and were heartily surprised by the film - a noir murder mystery sort of thing with a lot of classic detective pulpy roots as both text and plot.
Music
Sunday, December 20, 2020
Noir Watch: Tomorrow is Another Day (1951)
Saturday, December 19, 2020
Noir Christmas Party Watch: Lady in the Lake (1947)
Sunday, December 13, 2020
Watch Party Watch: "I, The Jury" (1953)
Thursday, December 10, 2020
Noir (on Ice!) Watch: Suspense (1946)
Sunday, December 6, 2020
Noir Watch: Kiss Me Deadly (1955)
Sunday, November 29, 2020
Noir Watch: Fear (1946)
Thursday, November 19, 2020
Spooky Noir Watch: The Seventh Victim (1943)
Wednesday, October 21, 2020
Noir Watch: Destination Murder (1950)
Watch Party Watch: Slighty Scarlet (1956)
Watched: 10/20/2020
Format: Amazon Watch Party
Viewing: First
Decade: 1950's
Director: Allan Dwan - Director of Photography: John Alton
Wednesday, October 14, 2020
Noir Watch: The Racket (1951)
Saturday, October 10, 2020
Noir Watch: Where the Sidewalk Ends (1950)
Saturday, October 3, 2020
Noir Watch: They Won't Believe Me (1947)
An interesting noir with a series of curious twists and a solid cast. Presented on TCM's Noir Alley, host Eddie Muller brought in author Christina Lane who recently released a book on the film's producer Joan Harrison, Phantom Lady: Hollywood Producer Joan Harrison, the Forgotten Woman Behind Hitchcock (which would make a welcome Christmas gift for us at Signal Watch HQ). Harrison is worth discussing for her path into the film business, sensibility she brought to Hitchcock's story-telling, and... frankly, some of the other movies she's produced - including Phantom Lady* and Ride the Pink Horse - are fantastic and owe a lot of their story strength and sensibility to Harrison.
They Won't Believe Me (1947) is framed with a murder trial. Young is the defendant, and he's telling his tale/ spilling his guts from the witness stand, trying to explain what really happened, and which looks, honestly, really, really bad for him.
Monday, September 21, 2020
Noir Watch: Danger Signal (1945)
Watched: 09/19/2020
Format: Noir Alley on TCM
Monday, September 7, 2020
Noir Watch: The Unfaithful (1947)
Watched: I dunno. A couple of months ago.
Sunday, August 30, 2020
Neo-Noir Watch: Nocturnal Animals (2016)
Watched: 08/29/2020
Format: HBO
Viewing: First
Decade: 2010's
Director: Tom Ford
A lot of the coverage of the release of this film was that it was directed by Tom Ford, a fashion designer - which is an interesting idea. One would assume a fashion designer has an eye for visuals, lifestyle cues, wardrobe and staging. And - arguably, Ford delivers on all of these things.
He's cast beautiful people and dressed them well. He's hired some beautiful people and dressed them down. And, of course, there's the opening sequence which casts some (let's be honest) not gorgeous people and dressed them not at all. For Ford - this is a hellish horror, absurd and tasteless, open to interpretation and meaningless, so awful its funny. And knowingly hard to look at. And... is, at best, a very small building block of what is arguably his point with the film, and set me to thinking about what and who a Tom Ford is and how that would set them for empathy and sympathy with characters in a story.