Watch Party Watch: Star Trek IV - The Voyage Home (1986)

Watched:  03/15/2021

Format:  Amazon Watch Party

Viewing:  Unknown

Decade:  1980's

Director:  Leonard Nimoy

Until Lower Decks and a few one-off episodes, one of the few attempts at light comedy/action in the Trek franchise, Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home  (1987) caps off the trilogy that started in Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan, bringing our crew finally back to Earth after giving us the thrill of seeing them wandering the streets of 1986 San Franciso as a slightly disheveled away team.

I am 85% sure I've written this one up before, so I won't do it again.  It's the one with the whales.  

Watch Party Watch: Deathsport (1978)

Watched:  03/05/2021

Format:  Amazon Watch Party

Viewing:  First

Decade:  1970's

Director:  probably best we not dwell on it

This is kinda the new bar for our Friday night watch parties.  We've sampled many flavors of movie over the year we've been in lockdown (we started off live-tweeting The Shadow on April 10th of 2020!) - and you never know how it's going to go.  But I took the advice of Nathaniel C, a guy who really knows his genre stuff, and chose Deathsport (1978) as our feature of the evening.

Do you like motorcycles?  Explosions?  Exploding motorcycles?  Plastic swords?  Iffy sci-fi dialogue and boobs?  Friends, Deathsport (1978) has all that and more.  It may lack plot, character, direction and a steadi-cam harness, but it doubles down on what it does have.  

Sometime in the distant future, after a nuclear war of some sort, matte paintings of cities will be ruled by guys who look vaguely like Johnny Cash's ill sibling.  The wastelands between will be inhabited by mutants (people with ping-pong balls cut in half and covering their eyes), and "rangers", an idea stolen awkwardly from Tolkein.  The city's will have something called "Deathsport", which is like a motorcycle stunt show with murder.  

I cannot stress enough that you can get a flashlight that will disintegrate people, horses and doors, but folks seem obsessed with using swords and motorcycles to do their murder.  I should mention - the swords are well intentioned - someone made them out of plexiglass and the basic concept is kind of cool.  Except they look exactly like plexiglass, and I have to assume they broke a few in production.  

With an inevitable dash of pretention, the "rangers" have their own code and manner of dialog that isn't inherently bad.  I've seen similar pulled off just fine in all kinds of sci-fi and fantasy, but here - it just isn't working.  And so it is very bad, indeed.  I don't know if it's the flat line delivery or that we keep seeing Carradine in a diaper and Uggs, but it just feels like no one was sure how it would or should work.  

The movie is titled Deathsport, but unlike, say, Deathrace 2000, there's very little Deathsport.  Deathsport is a gladiatorial game that David Carrdine and his lady-friend (Claudia Jennings) get thrown into as Rangers, versus city-dwelling Statesmen, who hate the Rangers.  They are mercilessly driven near by guys on dirtbikes - here called "Death Machines" - who ensure they are within sword range and very, very combustible.  Like, look at them funny or a strong breeze hits them just right, and they're blowing up with 5x the capacity their gas tanks could have mustered.  So many explosions, just blasting off everywhere.

I guess there's a story, but it doesn't matter.  An argument is made about a lack of fuel and remainin technology, but it doesn't play into the movie - kind of the opposite.  Instead, it's Richard Lynch taking his helmet off and chasing Carradine and Jennings across very familiar terrain if you've ever seen anything ever shot outside in Southern California.*  There's a slowly maddening head of a city who is just a dick, gets his while taking a moment to torture a nude lady with Christmas lights in PVC pipes.  It's a whole thing.

Maybe the most remarkable part of this very remarkable film is the sound, both music and sound effects.  I can kind of see why letting a cat run across your synth would seem like a fine idea for a score, and there's all kinds of music that gets inserted in - including sexy sax during a fight scene.  But the score is... just really something.  

I don't know who did sound design on this, but it was not Ben Burtt.  Someone chose a few sounds, did not pay attention to whether they would be awful if you had to hear them every time a motorcycle passed the camera, and then never reviewed their work before releasing the film.  It's some absolutely insane/ maddening stuff.  Every choice made to suggest the motorcycles do not sound like dirtbikes is a tragic mistake, and may the sound designer find peace, for they were clearly a tormented soul if this was working for them.

Anyway - highly recommended.

The Vasquez Rocks may be the single most filmed location on Earth.

Retro Space Opera Watch: Flash Gordon (1936) - listed as "Rocketship" on Amazon

Watched:  02/14/2021

Format:  Amazon Prime

Viewing:  First all the way through

Decade:  1930's

Directors:  Frederick Stephani, Ray Taylor 

So, this was a truncated film that cut together the story from the famed Flash Gordon serial from 1936 into a single film.  For whatever reason, it was called Rocketship on Amazon Prime.  

And, frankly, I really can't recommend it enough.  

RiffTrax Watch: Space Mutiny (1988)

Watched:  02/20/2021

Format:  Rifftrax on Amazon Prime

Viewing:  Oh, god... 4th?

Decade:  1980's

Director:  Let's let them live in peace

This movie isn't very good.  

Highly recommend checking out the RiffTrax version on Amazon Prime.  Watched primarily because JeniferSF had watched it, and it seemed like a good idea.  It was.

Watch Cattrall Party Watch: Split Second (1992)

Watched:  02/12/2021

Format:  Amazon Watch Party

Viewing:  First

Decade:  1990's

Director:  Tony Maylam

JeniferSF take on same.

I picked this movie as a Watch Party because it looked like exactly what it was - a 1990's sci-fi Rated-R actioner that wasn't taking itself very seriously, but mostly because it co-starred Kim Cattrall, and after last week's Mannequin 2 viewing, I was like "we should have watched the one with Cattrall", so here we are.

Split Second (1992) is not a good movie.  A quick check after the film finished confirmed what I suspected - the movie had multiple voices seemingly at battle with one another, including star Rutger Hauer having input as they went along.  So, because the story is all over the place - and the story is basically them trying to figure out who (and then what) is killing people, nothing makes sense and nothing matters.

The answer is:  it's a big, Giger-Alien knock off that is maybe invisible, or moves very fast, or something.  They never really say.  I do know they hide the monster till the very end of the movie, but it's featured on the poster?  

We have an odd-ball pairing of the bookworm cop who has credentials that make him seem like maybe the police is a weird place for him to wind up, and Rutget Hauer, who is a loose cannon cop with self-destructive tendencies who clearly needs to be on leave, but they keep him on the streets because... well, in 2021 it'd be because the police unions will be damned before they suggest maybe someone isn't fit for duty.  Here we get a police sergeant just yelling at Hauer and telling him he's dangerous and whatnot, and then handing him back his badge.

PODCAST: "Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan" (1982) - A Signal Watch Canon Episode w/ SimonUK and Ryan

 

Watched:  01/22/2021

Format:  BluRay

Viewing:  Unknown

Decade: 1980's

Director:  Nicholas Meyer

for more ways to listen 

SimonUK and Ryan boldly get into a movie about aging, space pirates, sacrifice and making grown men cry when their space pal is taken out. We're tasked with talking about what a big deal this movie is for us, personally, as well as what it meant for Star Trek as a franchise. 

The Signal Watch PodCast · 136: "Star Trek II: The Wrath Of Khan" (1982) - Signal Watch Canon w/ SImonUK and Ryan

Music

Main Title - James Horner, Star Trek II OST

Epilogue, Closing Credits - James Horner, Star Trek II OST

Playlists

Signal Watch Canon

The Signal Watch PodCast · The Signal Watch Canon

SimonUK Cinema Series

The Signal Watch PodCast · SimonUK Cinema Series

Watch Party Watch: Evil Brain from Outer Space

Watched:  01/11/2021

Format:  Amazon Watch Party

Viewing:  First

Decade:  1960's 

Director:  Koreyoshi Akasaka, Akira Mitsuwa, Teruo Ishii

So...  this movie starts off weird as hell, which I salute, then goes to goofy fun and TONS of action.  All of which I salute.  

Apparently this is the third in a series of Japanese kids movies about a fellow name of "Starman" who hails from "The Emerald Planet" and is here to save humanity from interplanetary threats via kicking ass and taking names.  He doesn't have a secret identity, even though he changes from his work-a-day coat and tie into a pretty terrific super ensemble that has a kicky antenna and "not a cape" attached to his arms for added flair.

The effects are better than you figure, the stunts out of this world, and while the movie makes little sense, at least it moves fast and is cool as hell.

Count me as a convert to this whole Starman scene.

Oh, and, yes, there's an evil brain.  from outer space.

 

PODCAST: Aliens (1986) - a Signal Watch Canon episode w/ SimonUK and Ryan

Watched:  01/06/2021

Format:  DVD (Legacy Edition)

Viewing:  lol

Decade:  1980's

Director:  James Cameron

More ways to listen

We're talking the movies in our personal canon - the movies that opened our minds, expanded our horizons and maybe helped inform who we are. And what better way to reflect upon oneself than with a rip-roaring sci-fi action horror yarn about motherhood, alienation, personal interconnectedness, unexpected surprises and who will stand by you when life really tears you apart.

The Signal Watch PodCast · 135: "Aliens" (1986) - The Signal Watch Canon w/ SimonUK and Ryan

Music: 

Bishop's Countdown - James Horner, Aliens OST

Signal Watch Canon

The Signal Watch PodCast · The Signal Watch Canon

SimonUK Cinema Series

The Signal Watch PodCast · SimonUK Cinema Series

Watch Party Watch: The Running Man (1987)

Watched:  01/08/2021

Format:  Amazon Watch Party

Viewing:  Unknown

Decade:  1980's

Director:  Paul Michael Glaser

The Running Man (1987) - for being a kinda goofy movie about a gameshow where the contestants are framed-up convincts and convicts with crimes like "not teaching the curriculum to school kids", this movie has some uncomfortably prescient stuff baked in as our janus-faced gameshow host plays to his base of folks who *won* in a prior civil conflict, and are joyfully taking part as people are killing each other for our entertainment.  Not surprisingly, such a dynamic show has cross-demographic appeal, and it's not just the folks who came out on top economically, it's also the folks on the streets who can't look away as desperate men run for their lives.  

Trek Watch: Star Trek - Nemesis (2002)

Watched:  01/06/2021

Format:  Amazon Streaming

Viewing: First

Decade:  2000's

Director:  Stuart Baird

So, this movie wasn't very good.

To be clear - all my favorite ST:TNG people are back (even Wesley Crusher), and they're all good.  The movie even co-stars a very young Tom Hardy, Ron Perlman and good ol' Dina Meyer.   But.  The very premise doesn't make a lot of sense, it weirdly includes what amounts to a rape scene of Troi (handled in the most ham-fisted and traumatizing way possible) which comes from nowhere and is seemingly there only to motivate Troi in the final reel to play Space Ouija Board to find the baddies.*  

But, yeah, Star Trek: Nemesis is about off-brand Romulans and a clone of Captain Picard (Hardy) picking a fight with Picard by planting an early-model of Data on a nearby planet.  They seem to have a modestly large-sized ship that, for reasons I was not clear on, will somehow overtake all of Earth's defenses if the Enterprise crew doesn't stop them.

Trek Watch: Star Trek - Insurrection (1998)

Watched:  01/03/2021

Format:  Amazon Streaming

Viewing:  Second

Decade:  1990's

Director:  Jonathan Frakes

I had mostly blocked out my prior viewing of Star Trek: Insurrection (1998), remembering it as "the one that felt like a very long episode of the show".  And, indeed, minus the movie suggesting Picard has found the love of his life (who is immediately never again discussed), the movie is more or less a stand-alone episode with some effects that are okay but never amazing.

Mostly, it feels like the cast of Trek screwing around for 45 minutes before the movie remembers it needs to get its act together and do a movie.  And even then, Gates McFadden looks like she's visibly smiling while going pew-pew-pew with a phaser rifle, like "ha ha!  They're letting me do stuff!"  

So, things I liked:

• Frakes directing himself in a sequence with Troi in a bathtub, irritated that Starfleet is calling
• Worf does not need to be there, but is, and goes through Klingon puberty for some reason
•  The Enterprise E is a pretty sweet ride
• The cast insisting on finding a way to fit in Gilbert & Sullivan during a space battle
• Hiring F. Murray Abraham at the height of his fame and then making him unrecognizable under layers of make-up
• Gates McFadden generally just looking pleased to be there even if she has *nothing* to do

But mostly the movie itself doesn't make much sense and goes to some extraordinary script-lengths to create their scenario that is wildly hand-wavy.  But Trek fans should check the set up that leads to the titular "insurrection" as a reminder of how horribly run Starfleet is during Next Generation episodes.  It was a weird staple of ST:TNG that Starfleet was consistently making horrible decisions that Picard would need to rebel against like a cool teen showing up the stuffy principal that of course it made it into a movie.*  I understand a Star Fleet is a tough thing to run, but maybe by the 10th tribunal where Picard is having to do his best Perry Mason, check the man's service record, remember he has no particular reason to be a Romulan agent, and stop threatening to disassemble Troi or whatever they're doing that week.  

Anyway - this is a very weird, very obviously inexpensively made era of Trek-movie, and while I am thrilled the cast is having fun, this whole movie needed a lot more workshopping at the script level than anything else.  

One day they will make a Trek-show where the Captain is not constantly the point man on every dangerous operation, but this movie is not that.  And Ryker flies the Enterpise by joystick AGAIN.

A final note - the movie casts Broadway darling Donna Murphy as Picard's love interest, a 300-year-old alien living on a planet that seemingly will keep her young and rejuvenated forever (she has an action figure and everything!).  Doesn't let her sing or anything.  She has a lot of TV credits, and was coming off doing a stint on the briefly popular Murder One.   But she is actually very solid on a show that I usually just take for granted "look, the lines are nonsense, so if we get 'wooden' as a performance, that's a win sometimes."   

But I strongly suspect I'll immediately forget this movie again, because it makes very little sense.

*So, yeah, next time you're complaining about Picard and saying "Picard would never quit the Federation!  I don't like New Trek", remember the approximately 52 episodes of the show where someone in a bathrobe showed up and Starfleet decided the Enterpise needed to be shutdown or whatever.   Sooner or later, you take your pension and go drink in France.

Watch Party Watch: Day of the Triffids

Watched:  09/18/2020
Format:  Amazon Streaming
Viewing:  First
Decade:  1963
Director:  Steve Sekely, Freddie Francis

I forgot to write this up in September, and now it's too late.

Watch Party Watch: Masters of the Universe (1987)

Watched: 11/20/2020

Format:  Amazon Watch Party

Viewing:  Unknown

Decade:  1980's

Director:  Gary Goddard

I should start by saying:  I didn't ever really like He-Man and the Masters of the Universe as toyline, cartoon, what-have-you.  Maybe because a lot of the material behind the franchise is simply bad.  The Filmation cartoon was goofily animated and the voice actors always sounded like they were recording out of context and in a well-tiled bathroom.  It featured a handful of wildly annoying characters and artists who really wanted to work in a few rotoscoped shots as often as possible.  (I will say - it DID blend American comic book style art very well, and should have shown Marvel how to do this instead of what they did in the 1990's.)  But mostly, He-Man was a lot of nonsense to sell toys, and that's great.  I support that idea.  I just wasn't into their particular gumbo of elements that made up their cartoon and toys (and found the original line of toys frankly grotesque, and not in a fun way).

Interaction watch - RoboCop (1987)

Watched:  11/03/2020

Format:  Amazon Watch Party

Viewing:  let's not talk about it

Decade:  1980's

Director:  Paul Verhoeven

I think we'll be podcasting this at some point in 2021, so we're gonna take a pass on writing it up.

But it was fun to watch as a Prime Party, as some hadn't seen it or hadn't seen it in a while.

Amazon Watch Party Watch: Escape From New York (1981)

 

Watched:  11/06/2020
Format:  Amazon Watch Party
Viewing:  Unknown
Decade:  1980's
Director:  John Carpenter

I'm not writing this up.  If you've not seen it, you're all the poorer for it - but it's a fine bit of early 80's cinema.  And, of course, established Kurt Russell as a non-Disney star.

Watch Party Watch: Frankenstein Meets the Space Monster (1965)

Watched:  10/13/2020

Format:  Amazon Watch Party

Viewing:  First

Decade:  1960's (and how!)

Director:   Robert Gaffney

Jenifer picked this particular gem for our Tuesday screening, and it was a g-d delight.  

For reasons that are never explained, NASA creates a sort of synthetic man they want to launch into space in place of an astronaut (we are all fine with automation in our space probes, and I'm not sure why the ruse is necessary).  He doesn't actually work very well, but they go ahead with the plan.

Meanwhile, aliens from a distant world that has experienced a wave of self-destruction via nuclear exchange have come to Earth in a space ship roughly the size of a small house, with plans to steal our women - because they have none.  Except for their leader, a sort of imperious-but-fun Space Queen (Marilyn Hanold) in a heck of a pant-suit and head dress.  

Not That Spooky Watch: Little Shop of Horrors (1986)

Watched:  10/03/2020

Format:  Amazon Prime?  Jamie put it on

Viewing:  ha ha ha... I have no idea

Decade:  1980's

Director:  Frank Oz

I think SimonUK and I are going to podcast this movie after Christmas, so I'm not going to write it up. Weirdly, despite the fact I do watch this movie fairly often - somehow I've never written it up on this site, which is kinda odd.  There's a few mentions of the movie on Melbotis.com, but the format over there was kinda all-over the place. 

Here's a post from back when I did DITMTLOD posts where I talk about Ellen Greene as Audrey.

Anyway, this seems like good incentive to actually cover it on the podcast this winter.

Mel Brooks Watch: Spaceballs (1987)

 

Watched:  09/26/2020
Format:  Streaming?  Jamie was playing it.

Viewing:  oh, lord, I have no idea

Decade:  1980's

Director:  Mel Brooks

I really enjoyed this movie in 1987 when I saw it in the theater, and despite the fact I've seen it a couple of dozen times, I continue to enjoy this movie.  

Also - every time I'm waiting to see if something at work is going to work, I mutter "come on, Schwartz".  No one ever knows what I'm talking about.

Watch of the Damned: Creation of the Humanoids (1962)

Watched:  09/18/2020

Format:  Watch Party

Viewing:  First (and last!)

Decade:  1960's

Director:  Wesley Barry

...R.O.T.O.R.

...Santa with Muscles

...Monster a Go-Go...  

Sure, we watch a lot of not-great movies, but some feel as if they exist to test your very sanity.  Some movies are so insanely bad, so weirdly made and uncomfortable to watch - made and released with what appears to be utter sincerity on the part of the filmmakers - sincerity that serves no one and seems like a hallucination more than a delusion...  

These films join our personal canon of Movies of the Damned.  

We've had a wild ride this summer as we've enjoyed our Friday night Amazon Watch Parties, but Jenifer found an amazing entry this week with Creation of the Humanoids (1962).  

It's the movie that dares to ask:  but what if a movie was 96% exposition?  

and

What if everyone just stood on their marks with a minimum of motion for the runtime of a film?

In some ways, I give it credit.  It does nothing but propose a few sci-fi premises and then builds on those premises, asking questions no one asked and providing a sea of answers that no one cares about, only to ask more questions.  And it does it over and over and over for what I am pretty sure was a full calendar year, but you will find to be a neat 75 minute or so runtime.  

It's a post-nuclear-holocaust future and man is barely hanging in there despite shiny outfits, women with rocket bras, nifty architecture and the help of our robot friends.  

People seem to be on their way out, as robots seem to be figuring out self-replication.  There's a herd of guys running around yelling MAGA dressing in shiny Confederate uniforms and harassing robots.  They have a cute clubhouse and everything.  Meanwhile, Robots are, in fact, secretly rising up to replace humans.  

All of this is told, not shown, in lengthy, lengthy speeches which would make a high school forensics teacher proud.  

The make-up on the humanoids/ robots is weirdly excellent - the work of Jack "Universal Monsters" Pierce himself, apparently slumming by 1962.  

I can't do this movie justice.  I hate it so much I like it.  It's mind-bogglingly inept, except that... the cinematography, sets, and make-up all work fine.  It's just that there's only 4 sets, and long, long scenes that will not end containing nothing but nonsense sci-fi talk that can and should have been SHOWN.  Just when you think this might be an allegory for something - NO.  We move right on past that and it's right back to a very concrete story about the concrete problems of robots.  It's like the mad ramblings of the worst nerd in your class who gets why robots are interesting, but not at all how a story works.  And was given money to make a movie.  

I... I'm worn out just thinking about it.

Forgot to Post Watch: Catwomen of the Moon (1953)

Watched:  07/10/2020
Format:  Watch Party
Viewing:  Second
Decade:  1950's
Director:  Arthur Hilton

This is a very, very silly movie, but it stars Marie Windsor, so it can't be all wrong. 

They aren't women who are cats, they are women in cat suits.  Cat women.  You know.