Monday, July 31, 2017

Sam Shepard Merges With the Infinite


Actor, Playwright, Director and pretty-cool-guy Sam Shepard has passed at the age of 73.  He had been dealing with ALS for some time.

Shepard appeared in one of my favorite films, The Right Stuff, as real-life hero and pilot Chuck Yeager.  It's one of those roles and performances I imprinted on at a young age, and I still marvel at each time I watch the movie.

He'll be missed.

Sunday, July 30, 2017

Espionage Watch: Atomic Blonde (2017)



It didn't occur to me that smoking was something that would become something people forgot to know how to do, let alone show on film.  The early 00's saw the end of smoking in film and as an acceptable habit for white urban and suburban middle-classes as well as a sign of rebellion or cool in film and television.  So when smoking - something that makes total sense for your 1989-era spies to be doing - becomes something they don't look like they know how to do, and your movie can't quite figure out that drawing attention to smoking (unless you're David Lynch) is antithetical to cool, anyway, you become somehow less cool than had you never tried in the first place.

Somewhere in the plot-drenched Atomic Blonde (2017) there's a deeply smart movie fully capable of keeping an audience used to cookie-cutter plots on its toes.  This movie also features one of the more ground-breaking action sequences you'll see in any movie this summer, merging the seamless combat sequences of Marvel's Daredevil show with the manic life or death choreography of one of the better Jason Bourne films - and it may be worth the price of admission just for that set-piece alone.

Unfortunately, it's a movie that relies of the same @#$%ing MacGuffin of most spy/ espionage films of the past 20 years - someone has a list of all the covert agents and our hero has to get it back before blah blah blah - while also trying to lift from Le Carre's moral DMZ of Cold War Berlin, and maybe trying to riff on Bowie and other late 20th Century musician's leaning on Berlin as a sort of crucible of self.  But that is giving someone's sexy spy actioner more credit than it's due, at least in presentation rather than intention.

The end result is an overly long movie which seems to believe it's delivering on style while dropping the ball on what 1989 looked like, fails to develop any characters - up to and including our lead - and lets James McAvoy run around looking like a Brad Pitt character a decade early.  But don't worry - someone went to Spotify and filtered for "'80's" and applied period-specific pop songs with a Zack Snyder-esque penchant for making the song so on-the-nose you start thinking about the mechanics of how this movie got made.

Tuesday, July 25, 2017

Mustache You a Question: The Mustache Superman Meme has already produced this...

If you're not keeping up, Justice League is in reshoots (shocker, after Snyder left and Joss Whedon came on).  Therefore, our modern Man of Steel, Henry Cavillm is acting in two movies at the same time, and he's legally bound to wear a mustache for his part in what I think is a new Mission Impossible movie.

So, WB is going to film a mustachioed Superman and then digitally remove his cookie duster.

But - what if it were otherwise?  Well, the internet went nuts yesterday imagining how great that would be.

And, if you want to do more than imagine it or look at a few MS Paint photo manips, the internet hath provided...  (also, The Dug, who sent this to me)



Monday, July 24, 2017

Happy Birthday, Lynda Carter

Ms. Carter at the recent premier of "Wonder Woman"

Here's to Lynda Carter, who is celebrating her b-day today.

Lately it seems Ms. Carter has been particularly busy, between appearing on the CW's Supergirl as the President of the United States, to performing live (she's a well-regarded singer), to talk show appearances, to her appearance at the UN and in partnership with the Wonder Woman film.  And last year she lent her voice to a lounge performer in Fallout 4.

We're always happy to see Ms. Carter get her due.  And, of course, we hope she has a great birthday.

Wednesday, July 19, 2017

Ape Watch: War for the Planet of the Apes (2017)



I was skeptical when Matt Reeves and Co. relaunched the Planet of the Apes franchise a few years back.  We're big fans of the original five films here at The Signal Watch - but despite a certain affection for Tim Burton and an appreciation for anything with a simian in a featured role, I've only seen that remake once.  Because I kind of hated it and wound up having to apologize to several friends who agreed to go see the movie with me.

So, yet another go at the idea wasn't something I was looking forward to initially.

But, lo and behold, Rise and Dawn of the Planet of the Apes were released, and, yea, I dug them. They managed to find an astonishing line where they could break from the original narrative but still give nods enough, show respect for those movies and still be entirely their own thing.  If Caesar wasn't the child of apes who'd traveled through time and space, we still found a way to make him the founder of the Ape Society that didn't need to bend time and space to get the job done.  And if I always stood by the complex heart of the original slate of films, the new movies refused to be any less challenging.

I'm pleased to report that War for the Planet of the Apes is a worthy conclusion to the trilogy, an astonishing technical achievement, and - as all the apes movies have been (save the Burton one-off) a thoughtful character study and examination of morals.  And, of course, a dystopian sci-fi franchise that actually earns its dim view of humanity.  It isn't just ignorance or folly that leads to man's downfall, it's mankind's inability to tame our demons that drives us straight over the cliff.

"Professor Marston & The Wonder Women" - Trailer for WW Comics Origin Pic



Well, this is going to complicate things.

But, yes, I'll absolutely be going to see it.  First read about this circa 2001 in a book by Les Daniels.

Black Lightning is Coming to the CW!



I was always a little lukewarm on Black Lightning as a superhero character until, I guess around 2002 or so, someone came up with the idea that Jefferson Pierce was a little older and had daughters who were manifesting powers (and, of course, wanted to be heroes, too).

Not only did it mean Black Lightning was suddenly anchored a lot more as a character - no longer just "that black guy with lightning powers" which he'd become after the early appearances, it gave him a robust supporting cast.

Unfortunately, The New 52 wiped away the take on the Pierce family I'd come to like quite a bit, following the characters across a few DC books.  Needless to say, I'm thrilled this is the angle they're taking on for a new DC show on the CW.  Those writers do family well, and - when given the chance - also do people of multiple generations pretty well.

Looking forward to tuning in and seeing how they pull this off.

Monday, July 17, 2017

RoboWatch: "RoboCop" at 30



Monday 7/17 marked the 30th anniversary of the release of RoboCop.  It's no secret that we here at The Signal Watch are fans of the 1987 sci-fi cyborg opus, and, so, over the weekend, we watched the movie for 476th time.

The first time we caught RoboCop, it was at a one-screen, old-fashioned movie house in Ishpeming, Michigan, when we were on our annual visit to see the grandparents in the summer of 1987, and - for whatever reason - my mom decided we needed to not spend another evening pounding soda in my grandparent's living room, and, instead, pound soda out of the house.

We alerted my mom to the idea that the movie was Rated-R, but the KareBear and Admiral were fairly liberal about this sort of thing, and in the era of Arnie, if my dad wanted to watch the latest Rated-R action releases, he was watching them with us, so we were getting pretty well desensitized to violence in movies, is what I guess I'm accidentally saying.*

Sunday, July 16, 2017

George Romero Merges With The Infinite


It's impossible to measure the impact this man had on pop culture and culture in general.  Legendary director and inventor of the modern zombie genre, George Romero, has passed.

We'll miss you, George.

Saturday, July 15, 2017

Re-Reading "Preacher"/ Quitting "Preacher"



note:  Preacher, both TV series and the comics series upon which the show is based, contain graphic violence, deeply mature themes, deeply immature themes, sexual frankness and deviation and no small amount of content of a religious nature which many-a-good folks would reasonably find offensive.  You can read this post, watch the TV show, or read the comics, but you've been forewarned, you're on your own, and your mileage will vary.   

Last year, Preacher came to television via AMC - arriving as a sort of high octane dramedy and a loose adaptation of the original comics which ran from 1995-2000 under DC's Vertigo imprint.  The second season is now underway, but I only made it fifteen minutes into the first episode of this year's offering before saying "You know, I'm good.  Let's not watch this."

You can do well with a superhero comics adaptation so long as you remain basically true to the intention of the authors, or - in the case of serial comics - find that core to the characters and concepts that have brought readers back, year after year, outlasting almost all other forms of long-time serial publications in the states.