00's Watch: Best in Show (2000)

Watched:  01/18/2022

Format:  HBOmax

Viewing:  Unknown

Director:  Christopher Guest

As much as I like all of Christopher Guest's work, this is my favorite.  Maybe.  That'll change next time I watch another of his films.  But Best in Show (2000) has... Jennifer Coolidge.  I mean, that's a big advantage on everything.  But I think this is also the first Jane Lynch role.  And, of course, the movie inadvertently changed the course of actual dog show broadcasts forever by inserting Fred Willard as one of the commentators of the fictional Mayflower dog show (The National Dog Show, upon which the movie is based, began including Seinfeld's John O'Hurley shortly after.  And he's great!).   

Look, you can IMDB the names in the movie, and they're all great.  But I do think that the third act is almost entirely the day of the show is a great idea and manages to play through what we've seen of the characters to this point and manages to remain hilarious (Posey's meltdown in the hotel and then the pet store is a highlight for me) while also wrapping up the narrative.  

The characters are so specific but instantly understandable.  And short Posey and Michael Hitchcock's characters, the movie isn't ever really dragging anyone - but even those characters are so... ridiculous, you want to watch them, anyway.  Everyone's kind of goofy and absurd and even if a bit prickly, you get it.  Everyone is adding something specific and really bringing their A-game (even Will Sasso with maybe 2 minutes of screentime, has a deeply memorable bit).  

I can't be objective about the movie.  I've seen it maybe 15 or 20 times, even if it's been a while.  Not everything has aged gracefully, but I think it holds up. 

90's Re-Watch: Living in Oblivion (1995)

Watched:  01/19/2022

Format:  HBOmax

Viewing:  Unknown

Director:  Tom DiCillo

In August of 1995, I entered into Film I, joining the "production" track within my university's film school.  That Fall would see a lot of changes, and I mostly remember a lot of exhaustion, a lot of learning-on-the-fly and getting to handle actual film cameras for the first time.  As well as editing, cutting and screening work I did mostly in collaboration with others.  

Living in Oblivion (1995) was released during the middle of the 90's indie boom, and maybe was just a little too indie to break huge, but it does seem like a movie that a lot of people saw back then or since.  A film about filmmaking, but not in that way that Hollywood likes to reward with Oscars, Living in Oblivion hit all of us in that Film 1 class where we lived, realizing our dumb little misadventures behind the camera were just how this business was going to work.  

Happy Birthday, David Lynch

Happy birthday to David Lynch.  

Watch Party Watch: The Brain From Planet Arous (1957)

Watched:  01/14/2022

Format:  Amazon Watch Party

Viewing:  Firstish

Director:  Nathan Hertz

I'll tell this story again here, so...

The year is about 1978 or 79.  For reasons I cannot remember, my mom has to keep me busy while she deals with something else in the house.  I am about 3 or 4.  My mom does something she never does:  she puts me in my folks' room and turns on the TV and says "look at that til I get back".  I am left alone with a black and white movie on the TV.

The movie is well underway, I don't understand what's happening and then this shit appears on screen:

I lose it.  Giant floating menacing brains with glowing eyes are not something I yet take for granted.  

Noir Watch: 711 Ocean Drive (1950)

Watched:  01/16/2022

Format:  TCM

Viewing:  First

Director:  Joseph M. Newman

Part of the "law and order"/ "crime doesn't pay" flavor of films that can get lumped in with noir, I'd seen 711 Ocean Drive (1950) listed for a while and figured I should get to it.  

It's.... fine.  A mix of "technology plus crime!" that is sometimes done well, but usually ends up with a bit of a hokey angle, plus the story of how easy it is to become an LA crime lord because you know how to patch through a phone call is... well, it's a set up.  

Starring the actor who always makes me think "well, shit, if that guy could become a lead in movies, why didn't I try?", Edmond O'Brien, the movie follows his phone-company technician who believes anyone who falls in love or who isn't trying to get ahead through whatever's at hand is an idiot (a real charmer, this character), O'Brien is presented by his bookie to a wire service/ gambling empresario.  He hooks them up with the magic of RADIO in a scheme I utterly never understood - as it seemed not illegal - but facilitated a lot of illegal bookmaking.  

I dunno.  There's a lot going on here and you'll either watch the picture or you won't.  But it is intensely plot heavy as O'Brien manages to take over ALL CRIME IN CALIFORNIA and then a syndicate moves in and he joins up.  Mostly because he wants to get with one of the Syndicate guy's wife, played by notable actor Joanne Dru (Red River, She Wore a Yellow Ribbon).  

The film's big set piece is the access they had to Hoover Dam (then called Boulder Dam) and filmed Edmond O'Brien sweating his ass off running all over the damned thing trying to avoid police.  It's a reminder that I would very much like to one day tour the dam myself.  It seems keen.  But the movie makes the interesting choice to just cast the rangers at the Dam as themselves, so suddenly in minute 70 you're getting cops giving wildly wooden performances.  

The movie has some weirdly good cinematography, courtesy Franz Planer.  They made the most of the on-location work at the dam, but there's also plenty of interesting stuff in a gas works and just in how some sequences were thoughtfully framed or lit.  

I didn't hate the movie, but it's not threatening to knock any of my top 10 favorites out of place.  Joanne Dru is the best one in the movie, so much so that it can feel like she was imported from a different movie.  Edmond O'Brien is never bad, but he is always Edmond O'Brien.  I don't know what 711 Ocean Drive is, but I guess it's the house he lives in after becoming a crime boss.  

Any threat the movie received from actual organized crime about the secrets of criminal ways supposedly revealed in the film that would have required the production required police protection seems... well, it seems made up.  But I guess if you hire cops to hang around and then say "so hot, we needed people legally allowed to shoot people to protect it", that's a pretty good PR hook.  

Anyway, stay away from telephone switching equipment.  That way lies crime and personal doom.

PODCAST 179: "Soylent Green" (1973) - a 2022 SciFi Episode w/ JimD and Ryan

Watched:  01/05/2022

Format:  Tubi

Viewing:  First

Director: Richard Fleischer

For more ways to listen

JimD returns to talk what to expect in the new year and what to look for as you consider healthy eating in 2022. It's a Sci-Fi classic that isn't all that great! But it has a neat ending. And garbage trucks. And some name cast, which is just weird. Join us as we try not to crowd you with our opinions!

Music:

Soylent Green - Fred Myrow

Sci-Fi Nerdery

The Signal Watch PodCast · Science Fiction Nerdery!

FRIDAY - Watch Party: The Brain From Planet Arous

When I was 3 years old, my mom was busy and left me in my folks' room with the TV on to keep me occupied.  What I remember is my first, genuine TV or movie induced terror was triggered when a giant, floating brain with glowing eyes appeared on screen to muck about with people.  

I lost my damn mind.  

The fact is, my mom didn't and doesn't watch movies or TV and saw something black and white on TV, and I suspect she thought "it's the middle of the day and whatever this is will be old and boring but fine".  Noooope.  I was not fine.

For about four decades, I had no idea what movie this was.  And then, thanks to the internet, I finally figured it out a few years ago, but the DVD was super expensive, so I didn't buy it.  

Well, this movie is now streaming on Amazon.  And we're going to watch it and see what freaked me the hell out when I was 3 years old.

Day:  10/14/2021

Time:  8:30 PM Central/ 6:30 Pacific

Service:  Amazon Watch Party

Cost:  $2

CLICK HERE TO JOIN US

a foretaste of the feast to come

Ronnie Spector Merges With The Infinite

 

Singer Ronnie Spector, most famous for her work with the Ronettes, has passed.

Just two weeks ago I was checking to make sure I still had my signed copy of her CD.  

I went through my obligatory Phil Spector phase in college, and came out a bonafide Ronettes fan.  They don't have that many tracks, but what they did put out was all gold, and you hear their stuff all the time, especially at Christmas.

Jamie and I saw Ronnie back in 2017 at the Paramount - where we happened to run into SimonUK.  It was an amazing show, and I'm so glad we could do it.

We'll miss you, Ronnie.

Courtroom Watch: Witness for the Prosecution (1957)

Watched:  01/10/2022

Format:  TCM

Viewing:  First

Director:  Billy Wilder

Look, I refuse to talk about the contents of this film.  Go into it knowing nothing as Jamie and I did, and you won't be sorry.  

Here's something fun - I've had this movie on my DVR for years, one way or another.  I've been meaning to watch it, and somehow it just never made it to be the next thing I watched.  Which is crazy.  But every once in a while I'd be reminded of the talent in the movie, all of whom I like, and after a recent convo with Laura, thought "man, I just need to watch this at long last."  And then TCM played it around Christmas and I recorded it again!

Directed by Billy Wilder from an Agatha Christie play.  Starring Charles Laughton, Tyrone Power, Marlene Dietrich, Elsa Lanchester, Una O'Connor, and the always impossibly old Ian Wolfe.  

It's basically a murder mystery starting with a suspect (Power) being brought to Laughton, a barrister, so he can defend him when he gets arrested.  Marlene Dietrich plays Powers' wife.  

There's 10,000 words to write about Dietrich, but plenty of others have already done it.  So, go find them. She earned them.  

But, also, delight in Lanchester and O'Connor in a film together again, where, once again, they share no scenes.

90's Re-Watch: Muriel's Wedding (1994)

Watched:  01/09/2022

Format:  HBOmax

Viewing:  Unknown

Director:  PJ Hogan

Back in the long, long ago Muriel's Wedding (1994) was a movie I watched over and over.  I'm not really sure why.  It's a good movie, it's funny, it's a bit moving here and there.  It seems like an odd thing for a 20 year old dude to decide he's going to watch over and over, but here we are.

But I also don't think I'd seen it again in two decades.  It's been a really long time and I don't recall owning it since VHS.  

An Australian made movie, it did bring Toni Collette and Rachel Griffiths to the attention of American audiences when it arrived here (I think it was showing in Austin in Spring of 1995 and I watched it probably at The Dobie).  It was, in general, an interesting era for Australian and New Zealand film as it seemed like Campion was doing her thing, Peter Jackson was freaking everyone out, Pricilla, Queen of the Desert won hearts and minds, and Baz Luhrman's Strictly Ballroom was big for indie film fans.