So, there's a whole bunch of Criterion movies on sale on Amazon, and I wasn't doing much this weekend, so I got silly and justified the expense on this movie. Because.
Leave me alone. Sometimes I do things.
If you've never dipped your toe in French noir, or only watched Breathless, the French noir movement is fascinating as it's so clearly done with love for and homage to American noir (which the French coined - we just called them crime movies). I assume American culture was imported via Hollywood in the post-war years as American GI's rambled around Europe and France took a minute to get its film industry fired up again. But the American movies are refracted through the lens of a nation crawling out from occupation, and maybe contain the spirit which gave us Camus.
I mean, one of the French noir films I'd rec is called Elevator to the Gallows. Fate vs. freewill and existential dread hangs heavy on the minds of these movies - more so than American films mostly being about "don't pursue the wrong dame".
Le Cercle Rouge (1970) is a crime/ heist movie in which we're told at the outset, before we meet any characters "these people will come together, and it will go very badly, indeed". And, that is what happens.
Well, nothing says "I am a cool dude" like showing up for a 9:00 AM screening for Fantastic Four by yourself. I don't know if 12-year-old me is dying inside or deeply impressed I'm still committed to the cause.
Fantastic Four is not a comic I read a lot. I very much enjoy the first issues by Jack Kirby and Stan Lee, but kind of lose interest after that - though Mark Waid's run is mind-boggling. I do love the idea of the team as a bunch of science-adventurers more than just caped vigilantes,* and their individual personalities and the family dynamic. Also, my earliest memories include watching that jenky Fantastic Four cartoon of the 1960's the movie references.
I've never seen the Corman movie, but have seen the two 00's-era movies, and the 10's body-horror movie that was Fox's "edgy" take on the FF. The movies were uniformly not-good, no matter what your Millennial nostalgia brain is trying to Space Jam Fallacy you into believing.
Happy 84th birthday to Ms. Darlene Love - one of the greatest vocalists of the past 84 years.
Ms. Love was maybe *the* voice that came out of Phil Spector's studio/ Philles Records - and a colossal force in American music, often when people had no idea whose voice that was on a record. She performed her own solo work, that of The Crystals, the Blossoms, The Ronettes, and performed with everyone from Elvis to Boris Pickett on The Monster Mash.
She's been in movies - she's Glover's wife in Lethal Weapon - and been on Broadway. Every year since the mid 1980's on Letterman she's been on TV singing Christmas (Baby Please Come Home)and it's a highlight of the holidays.
Personally, I saw her Christmas show at Austin's Paramount Theater - and it was the greatest concert I've ever been to, and I'll stand by that one.
Happy birthday, Ms. Love.
So, here she is singing a favorite version of a favorite song
Is anything more telling about what the Coen Bros. each brought to their team than that when the brothers decided to do independent projects, Joel Coen made a mannered and styled Macbeth and Ethan Coen made Drive-Away Dolls (2024)?
The mix of high-brow and low-brow - even Raising Arizona has thematic and nigh-poetic aspirations - was their hallmark, with ultra-specific characters, absurdist humor, and deeply human stories - culminating in the excellence of their track record over years and movies that had a stamp audiences recognized and sought out.
I was vaguely aware Drive-Away Dolls received very mixed reviews, and audiences were kind of irritated with it.
Which, no kidding. The movie isn't overly concerned with good taste or your politics or the horseshoe turn lefties online took into agreeing with the Catholic League about how movies are for perverts if they acknowledge sex and show blood with violence. Instead, this flick is an old-fashioned pulp crime comedy with a heavy layering of what turns out to be the sense of oddball humor that the Coens always brought, that apparently was Ethan Coen's contribution.
Growing up in the US, racing has been mostly NASCAR, and I just never got into stock car racing. But Austin is, for vaguely shady reasons, home to an F1 track, and we all went from finding it weird to being kind of proud of it. It's not Monaco or anything, but it's a feature few other cities have. And, anyway, I started watching some videos about F1, and it is really neat. But I'm only aware enough of autosports to know that they are infinitely complex and I don't know how any of it works. But rocket cars go super fast and that is cool.
Something about the trailer for F1: The Movie (2025) had me sold. But I thought I'd probably see it at home on HBO eventually. However, SimonUK had seen it, liked it, and recommended I check it out, so we went together.
And, yeah, I dug it. Quite a bit, if I'm being honest. If I came to watch F1 cars zip around, it does that a lot.
After the movie was over, SimonUK stated "it's basically Top Gun: Maverick in cars, but... it works" and that is very correct. This movie is directed and written by the director of Top Gun: Maverick, Joseph Kosinski, so do your own math.
Terry Bollea, better known by his wrestling nom de guerre "Hulk Hogan", has passed at 71.
Hogan, a consummate performer, helped the World Wrestling Federation go mainstream as the the WWF's programming found it's way across basic cable packages and onto late-night broadcast on NBC in the 1980's.
In a kayfabe world of heroes and heels, Hogan went from heel to hero, defeating multiple ethnically coded villains, like The Iron Sheik. He reigned supreme over the WWF, WWE and helped draw interest in wrestling to help it become the mega-industry it is today.
Through the 1980's, Hogan's persona was turned into a cartoon, Hulk Hogan's Rock'n'Wrestling - starring animated versions of Hogan and a clutch of other popular WWF wrestlers. Fun fact: Hogan's cartoon persona was voiced by TV star Brad Garrett.
There were dolls, figures, t-shirts and vitamins (the vitamins tasted awful).
As a kid, I wasn't really into wrestling but in 1989 a 14 year old me had $15 and accepted a last second invite to see WWF's second-tier when they came to town, and we had a snarky-teen ironic blast. So when Hogan came through in Spring 1990, I went with a bunch of buddies who were unironically enjoying wrestling. The episode we saw aired as April 28, 1990's Saturday Night's Main Event.
This is the Hogan match-up we saw. You may catch 1/2 second glimpses of me and my brother in the audience.
Hilariously, my brother was not planning to go and had no ticket, and we'd purchased floor tickets months before. Shortly after we arrived, I looked across the ring and there was my brother, standing with the homecoming queen. I was so confused - but I guess her dad had bought tickets and she knew Jason is up for whatever, and so there he was, Forrest Gumping his way through life.
My memory is that Hogan was obviously the best athlete and showman of the people we saw that night, and we saw errrbuddy. It was a long, long night as they recorded two or three shows worth of wrestling.
Prior to blowing up on TV, Hogan had done well in the ring and wound up as a minor villain in Rocky III. He would go onto have a TV show, Thunder in Paradise, and star in a series of very bad movies. And at the same time Ozzy was in The Osbournes, Hogan brought cameras into his house and started Hogan Knows Best. Which was canceled as the Hogan family kind of imploded.
In the years after, Hogan's life and career sort of spiraled. His wife left him for a guy who looked just like Hogan in his early prime. He was caught in a sex tape scandal. He became involved in ugly politics. I dunno.
It's unfortunate. For a while he was a curious everyman of an entertainer who appealed to kids and adults alike. The last decade and change, he's mostly been famous for being unpleasant. But at one point in my life, I owned an official Hulk Hogan bandana.
Ozzy Osbourne, musician, occasional provocateur and Gen-X's metal-dad, has passed at 76.
Osbourne has been ailing for years, and only a few weeks ago played his final show, which was widely watched and discussed. The line-up was full of star power, and the concert was scheduled to be Osbourne's final show before retreating from the public.
Osbourne's work with Black Sabbath and as a solo artist was enough to make him a major figure in rock, but he also was prone to outlandish antics, all of which will be rehashed over the next few days. And, then, he and his family were early Reality TV pioneers with The Osbournes on MTV. which recast the prince of darkness as a fun, befuddled dad.
But, man, Ozzy could sing. Everyone else is still playing catch up.
