Watched: 06/10/2020
Format: TCM on DVR
Viewing: First
Decade: 1940's
Director: Fritz Lang
This film has a tremendous premise, a terrific cast, and is absolutely knee-capped by the Hayes Code in the final minutes. I wouldn't say it's not worth watching, but if you're squinting at the movie and aware of the rules of the road for a movie made in 1944, and wondering "holy heck, how is *this* going to resolve?" - you may be on to something.
Movie: Frankenstein's Daughter
Watch: Amazon Prime
Day: Friday - 06/12/2020
Time: 8:30 PM Central
hashtag: #fraufranky
At 8:30 - pause the movie here. We'll give you the signal to sync up!
"dis"astor pictures!
Apparently shot in 6 days and on $65,000 - what could go wrong? Apparently no one told the make-up artist the monster was to be female so get ready for an accidentally progressive 1950's monster film where we respect the featured creature's pronouns.
I believe this film has 2 monsters, a band and some mad, mad science.
We're going old school! Join us as we delve into some 1950's monsterriffic mayhem!
Arnie-Fest continues as Simon and Ryan get to da choppa and do not camouflage their adoration of this 1980's sci-fi actioner staple. We talk about the cross-genre bending of the film, the changes to action in this era, Bill Duke, exult the acting skills of Arnold, and generally have a grand old time talking about what is maybe one of the best remembered movies of the second half of the 80's - and with darn good reason.
Watched: 06/04/2020
Format: Noir Alley on TCM on BluRay
Viewing: First
Decade: 1940's
Director: Edward Dmytryk
There's a lot to like in Cornered (1945), categorized here as Film Noir, but it's early in the movement and won't fit some people's ideas of the category. Still, a man driven half-mad by obsession ignores common sense in pursuit of his goals, his weaknesses clobber him repeatedly and near fatally, and there are possibly scheming women, even as he sets about solving a mystery. He's not a professional detective, but former Canadian RAF pilot Gerard (a not Canadian-polite Dick Powell) is recovering at the end of the war and learns that the French girl he met and married while hiding out in a village after being downed, was rounded up and killed by a Nazi collaborator.
In general, I like dragon flies. They remind me of lazy summer days and hanging out by the pool. Sometimes they even land on you when you're on a float, and that's kind of fun.
I do not care, however, for the Megaguirus, the giant flying SOB that is the villain of the piece in Godzilla vs Megaguirus (2000). Some of the monsters in Godzilla's rogues gallery are jerks - I'm looking at you, Ghidorah - but I straight up want to punch Megaguirus in its toothy face. I can find room in my heart for a space monster that is just doing its thing of domination via rampage, but Megaguirus brings nothing to the table, charm-wise, while also being a real pain.
All the worst things bugs do? Megaguirus is all about those things.
Watched: 05/30/2020
Format: Full Moon on Amazon Streaming
Viewing: First
Decade: 1990's
Director: Christian Drew Sidaris
In the wake of Hard Ticket to Hawaii, and with a 7-day trial of "Full Moon" available, I clicked around to see what else might be available from the Malibu Bay film collection. I stumbled upon The Dallas Connection (1994), another Bullets, Bombs and Babes movie from the studio.
SimonUK and Ryan discuss one of the finest films ever produced, the 1985 action opus, "Commando". Starring our beloved Arnie, the movie is an ideal of the action genre and narrative economy, while also featuring a fantastic cast, a possibly unintentionally weirdo bad-guy, a multi-talented Rae Dawn Chong, and Bill Duke as Bill Duke. We explore the incredible amount of goofy violence, idyllic child-rearing, unlikely explosions and what it means to strip down for a ride in a rubber raft.
Movie: The Beastmaster - 1982
Watch: Streaming on Amazon Prime
Day: Friday 06/05/2020
Time: 8:30 PM
hashtag: #tigerdye
Let's pause the movie here and wait on my signal:
the name that means "quality?"
Let's watch a movie about a grown man who walks around like it's okay to keep your ferrets in a duffel bag.* He also has a large cat and a bird. And Tanya Roberts! And many, many muscles.
It's a pre-"V" Mark Singer in a fantasy movie I haven't seen since high school. This is one that if you ask any dude between the ages of 52 and 40, they will swear this movie is good. But very few of us have watched it since, say, 1991. We don't really know.
In fact, aside from Mark Singer wearing a loin-cloth and constantly surrounding himself with animals (get a dog, Mark. Sheesh.), I don't really remember what the movie is even about. Probably an evil army that needs defeating.
Understandably, Conan: The Barbarian costs something to watch, so we're not doing it. I am also furious that Amazon has the balls to actually charge for:
Krull
Sheena
Red Sonja
Conan: The Destroyer
Clash of the Titans
and many, many other films that I would immediately watch if they were not $4. But Beastmaster is free to stream with Prime, so we're doing it.
Seriously, Red Sonja is the bomb.
*I mean, we all knew that guy in college, and he seemed colorful at first and then, eventually, you realized he just kind of sucked. Ferrets are great, and I loved them when my brother kept a couple of them, but they are not meant to go places with you so you can use them in place of a personality.
It started with protests in several cities in the wake of the George Floyd murder. George Floyd was a Black man apprehended by police under suspicion he'd floated a bogus $20 bill. For this, he was pinned to the ground by his throat beneath the knee of a man with a gun, who was supported by three of his fellow officers, as the suspect begged for air. This went on for almost 9 minutes.
The murder, and it was murder, occurred in broad daylight and on camera, carried out by a police officer in Minneapolis, Minnesota. A lot of people will try to call what occurred as a police officer pinned a man's neck to the ground with his knee for 9 minutes something else. Maybe they'll say it was unintentional (the video suggests otherwise), or just breaking some eggs to make an omelet. But in the era of cameras everywhere, the past fifteen years taught us how to pay attention to how people are policed and how police do their work. And how police officers do not police each other.
Watched: 05/29/2020
Format: Amazon Streaming on "Full Moon"
Viewing: Second, as it turns out
Decade: 1980's
Director: Andy Sidaris
As was said during the viewing, "this movie was actually printed on toxic masculinity". It's hard to remember how different things actually were in the 1980's, but different they were. Or, at least, certain held viewpoints were much more in the forefront of popular culture. And I'm not pretending like Hard Ticket to Hawaii (1987) was a popular movie or one most people alive during the era had seen, but it is emblematic of a certain kind of filmmaking that one could now hand over to a film-studies undergrad to get them to *really, really* understand the concept of "the male gaze" in movies.
