Hamilton Watch: Black Moon Rising (1986)

Watched:  04/23/2021

Format:  Amazon Prime

Viewing:  Second

Decade:  very, very 1980's

Director:  Harley Cokeliss

When you're a kid, you kinda like everything you see, and then - one day - you admit "that... maybe was sort of boring, or not what I wanted to watch".  The excitement of "movie" fades away, and you're admitting to yourself - even if the poster contained a cool car, a cool dude and a pretty lady, maybe that movie was not as good as the poster promised.  

I don't remember anything about Black Moon Rising (1986) from when I watched it on cable or VHS as a kid except that I didn't much care for it.  Well, I'd totally forgotten that the movie had any other known actors other than a pre-fame Tommy Lee Jones, but I was looking at it for a Friday night watch party and realized "oh, wow, this has Linda Hamilton!"  And I like me some Linda Hamilton.

Anyway - Linda Hamilton is probably one of two reasons to watch this movie.  She's doing her best in a movie that flatly doesn't deserve it.  She's wearing a crazy wig in the first scenes, so don't freak out when you see her in a doofy haircut.  The other reason is to see the kooky car they cast as The Black Moon.*

A deeply NOT street legal vehicle that looks designed to murder pedestrians and corner poorly, The Black Moon has turbo-boost, something we'd all seen on Knight Rider for years by the time this movie came out.  

Really, aside from Linda Hamilton's briefly glimpsed self, it feels a bit like a network TV movie.  

What's most alarming is that the titular car of the film is barely in the movie - you see more of Jackie Chan's supercar in Cannonball Run II.  And, as I mentioned, the movie doesn't do much with the car being "super".  In the same era as Blue Thunder, Air Wolf, Knight Rider, Street Hawk, etc...  putting a car out there as the central conceit better have *some* hook.  But, really, this movie is about the car getting boosted by Robert Vaughn's apparently wildly profitable car theft ring - a business so profitable I think they're suggesting he's building two skyscrapers in LA on the profits.  

Jones plays a thief in the employ of the US government who has stolen some data from Lee Ving of punk band Fear and, stumbling across the team bringing The Black Moon to LA to show it to investors, hides the data in the car...

You know what?  This movie isn't really worth a synopsis.  I can't recommend it.  It's slow as a heist movie, Jones isn't even great.  I read he was boozing a bit during this time, and that may be it.  Hamilton is fine, but she can't save this wreck.  

But, yeah:  Robert Vaughn, Linda Hamilton, Tommy Lee Jones, Bubba Smith, Lee Ving, Richard Jaeckel, William Sanderson, Keenan Wynn, a baby Nick Cassavetes...  it's kind of wild seeing all the folks go by.  The movie has a writing credit by John Carpenter, and advertised itself as "from the mind of", but it's telling that imdb trivia states he'd never seen it.

Oh well.  We can all still like Linda Hamilton.

*the wacky looking car is actually a fake version of the 1980 Wingho Concordia II, a real and unique car.

Doc Watch: Dangerous Days - Making Blade Runner (2007)

Watched:  04/21/2021

Format:  BluRay

Viewing:  First

Decade:  2000's

Director:  Charles de Lauzirika

For, really, the hardcore Blade Runner fan, Dangerous Days (2007) tries to put the documentary treatment to much of the same ground as Paul Sammon's book, Future Noir: The Making of Blade Runner.*  It's definitely its own thing, and they cover different but overlapping territories.  There's participation from darn near everyone - and who knows who they left on the cutting room floor.

But, yeah, from coffee shop conversations about "you should adapt this novel" to "huh, looks like we made a cultural juggernaut", and everything inbetween, it's an expansive view of not just the vision and why's and wherefore's of this very special film, but a look at the machinery of movie-making that's only got one layer of gloss.  25 years after the fact, people are more generous with each other, even if you do wind up with conflicting versions of events here and there.  

Worth it for the behind-the-scenes looks as much as the interviews, but... just know as I did not when I started the doc - it's 3.5 hours.  Break it up into a 2 or more viewings.  It has handy chapter sections, so feel free to turn it off and come back.  

Coincidentally, this is the first book I ever purchased through Amazon.  

Watch Party Watch: Yog - Monster from Space/ The Space Amoeba (1970)

Watched:  04/19/2021

Format:  Amazon Watch Party

Viewing:  First

Decade:  1970's

Director:  Ishirō Honda

This movie is not about an amoeba from space.  

I don't remember anyone calling the thing that does show up "Yog".  

It is about a sort of pile of glowing animated dots from space.  But that's not really an amoeba, is it, movie?

The blob of lights keeps infesting local beach creatures which turns them into rampaging kaiju, which creates a hard time for our friends who want to build a hotel on a remote island.  

Anyway, it's a lot of quality nonsense.  

Friday Night Watch Party: Crawl (2019) - let's watch alligators do what alligators do!

Well, we're back on the "let's watch animals eat people" thing, but a much newer movie!  And in Florida!

Let's watch people be somewhere they shouldn't and alligators looking at it as a buffet.

Day:  Friday - 04/23/2021

Time:  8:30 PM

LINK HERE TO WATCH

(I believe you can actually hear Barry Pepper yell "My leg!" in the trailer around 1:04)

PODCAST: "Cool Hand Luke" (1967) - a Signal Watch Canon Episode w/ MRSHL and Ryan

Watched:  02/10/2021

Format:  Amazon Streaming

Viewing:  Unknown

Decade:  1960's

Director:  Stuart Rosenberg

Click here for more ways to listen

We're discussing our personal canon, and to that end, Marshall and Ryan do not fail to communicate about one of the best movies of the New Hollywood era. Join us as we talk prison movies, analogy, and using film to reflect upon the wider world. Come on! It's one of the greats of American cinema starring one of the greats of American cinema! Come give us a listen.

 

The Signal Watch PodCast · 145: "Cool Hand Luke" (1967) - Signal Watch Canon w/ MRSHL and Ryan

Music:

Main Title and End Title - Lalo Shifrin, Cool Hand Luke OST

Signal Watch Canon:

The Signal Watch PodCast · The Signal Watch Canon

Maniac Watch: Maniac (1980)

Watched:  04/16/2021

Format:  Amazon Prime

Viewing:  First

Decade:  1980's

Director:  William Lustig

One of the interesting things about horror is that it can be used to give an actor a showcase who might not otherwise get one.  Joe Spinell is not a name with which a ton of people are familiar, although he had appeared in two Rocky films. I knew him from his star turn as the villain in Starcrash.  

Spinell was in a ton of stuff, but mostly not in leading roles, and mostly played a heavy.  Maybe not the greatest way to stretch one's acting resume.  But in 1980 he was part of the creative team that wrote and created Maniac, the movie of which he is the star (but let's agree it's weird to call him a protagonist, even if he is, kinda sorta).  He created an opportunity, and he really made the most of it.

JAL recommended the film, and I'd been putting it off, but it seemed like good counter-programming to The Beautician and the Beast.  Anyhoo... I get why JAL suggested it, and I did, in fact "like" it, which is a curious thing to say about a movie where a guy kills a whole bunch of people over 90 minutes.

I'm going to recommend the movie as a terrific/ whacko character study, a truly grisly horror movie (I did not watch with Jamie), and having a hell of an ending.  

Plus, it briefly co-stars Signal Watch fave, Caroline Munro!  Just sorta being Caroline Munro - but as a photographer!  

see!  There she is!  

Anyway - no spoilers.  But if you like the grittiness of, say, Basketcase, this movie is for you.

Watch Party Watch: The Beautician and the Beast (1997)

Watched:  04/16/2021

Format:  Amazon Watch Party

Viewing:  First

Decade:  1990's

Director:  Ken Kwapis

Wait wait wait...  Fran Drescher plays a sassy Jewish girl from working class New York who a well-meaning functionary mistakes as a great candidate for a child-rearing role for a powerful and wealthy handsome widower?  What an entirely novel concept!  

Look, you couldn't not be aware of Fran Drescher circa 1997.  I remember my grandmother praising The Nanny at the time, and my own hip 20-something skepticism.  But a couple of years ago I found myself watching re-runs of the show, and I was like "oh, I get it.  She wants to be Lucille Ball, but in mini-skirts and leaning into Jewish stereotypes that I, as a WASP from Texas, can neither confirm nor deny."  Frankly, for what it is, it works.  I won't say the show is "smart" exactly, but it does what it does well, and I get how it lasted 6 seasons.

But... even in 1997 I was confused by The Beautician and the Beast.  It's the same thing as what she was doing on TV.  Like, pretty much exactly.  The movie is even PG from an era where comedies were PG-13, but Drescher's comedy was always flirty, not going for overt sex comedy or working blue, and so felt sanitized for network censors of the time.  So there's not even "we could never do this on TV" to separate the two.  Drescher is quoted as saying she didn't want to challenge the audience too much as she moved to movies, but I'd argue - don't just ask them to pay for what they can see every week for free.*

Friday Watch Party: Beautician and the Beast

Fran-Mania Friday!

Join us as we celebrate Fran Drescher taking her successful TV concept and doing basically the same thing as a movie.  I assume.  I've not seen this movie.  But I'm a late-arriving fan of The Nanny, and so why wouldn't this be just as good?  It's got Timothy Dalton, and I love that guy.

So, let's hope this movie is pretty good!  Even without CC, Niles, Maxwell, Sylvia, Yetta, Val and the kids.  Let's hope a repressive dictator is just as funny.

Day:  04/16/2021

Time:  8:30 Central

Amazon Link here and now!

Doc Watch: Pumping Iron (1977)

Watched:  04/15/2021

Format:  Amazon Prime

Viewing:  First

Decade:  1970's

Director:  George Butler, Robert Fiore

So, I finally watched Pumping Iron (1977)!  It was super good.  I'm not spending the energy to write it up, but if I liked Arnie before (and he's my imaginary friend, so, yes), nothing has changed.  Also, it was wild to see young Lou Ferrigno.  

Noir Watch Party: The Blue Gardenia (1953)

Watched:  04/13/2021

Format:  Amazon Watch Party

Viewing:  Second

Decade:  1950's

Director:  Fritz Lang

We'd watched The Blue Gardenia (1953) some time back, and this time I'm inclined to be kinder to the film.  It's still not my favorite, but with Anne Baxter, Ann Sothern, Richard Conte and Raymond Burr and Fritz Lang directing, you kind of expect a bit more.

Anne Baxter gets a Dear Jane letter from her solider-boy boyfriend who has met a nurse overseas, and tells her he's getting married.  She does as anyone might do, receives a call for her roommate (Ann Sothern) looking for a date, takes up the fellow on it, and meets up with Raymond Burr.  Because it's 1953, Burr is not a nice guy, and he gets Baxter drunk and takes her back to his place to take advantage of her.  

Baxter wakes up at home, unsure of what happened, but she's left her shoes at Burr's apartment, which is embarrassing enough, but also: he's been killed with a fire poker.  So.  She seems to have totally murdered a dude and left her shoes behind.

Conte plays a local reporter - a social crusading type in search of headlines, and he begins the search for the woman they dub "The Blue Gardenia".

Fritz Lang wasn't one to shy away from a good thriller, of course, and this film puts the audience in the curious spot of identifying with a woman who just killed someone, with pretty good reason, but by social mores of the 1950's - if she's arrested, who knows?  Could be the gas chamber.  And if she's acquitted for self-protection?  One can assume she'd be "ruined" by attacks on her character for having made the terrible decision to cozy up to Raymond Burr.  The film doesn't explicitly say anything about a woman's place in society in 1953, but it's not hard to understand what the assumed rules are, and how Lang and the writers used those notions to build a better mousetrap for our protagonist.  As the audience, we know it's unjust, but...

Unfortunately, Conte is written as a bit of a dingbat, apparently buying a whole lot of "I have a friend who may have done a thing" storytelling, that I'd assume anyone as old as 14 would recognize as "and I assume this friend is you?"  But it's not how it's played off.  

The movie generally *looks* great, with Nicholas Musuraca listed as Cinematographer, and who had plenty of prior experience he brought to bear in this film.  

Again, the movie is fine - it just wasn't one I'd had any particular penchant for the first time I saw it, and that was more or less how I felt on round 2.