Thursday, September 29, 2022

Noir Watch: Gilda (1946)



Watched:  09/24/2022
Format:  BluRay - Criterion
Viewing:  Unknown (3rd?)
Director:  Charles Vidor

I don't talk to many people about Gilda (1946), but I know it's considered one of the greats of the film noir movement.  And I knew that on previous viewings, but it's been a while and we finally cracked open my Criterion BluRay to give the film a spin.  

It's astounding how *modern* some films from almost 80 years ago can feel (see: Touch of Evil)  Specifically in the case of Gilda, I believe it's in part because Gilda has been so often imitated, borrowed and stolen from, and so infrequently matched and perhaps never surpassed.  So, we've all seen movies, television and whatnot that echoes Gilda, but because it holds its place as a very specific story and, with now practically archetypal characters, to see how well the movie works with intricacy of plot, it becomes a film that is both absolutely of 1946 and timeless.  

Credit to the behind-the-lens talent, starting with director Charles Vidor and the handful of talent listed as writers.  And cinematographer Rudolph Mate.  

There's endless ink spilled on Gilda but there's a reason it's Hayworth's most enduring film in a career of amazing pictures.  The movie is adult and sexy and noir-as-hell in all the best ways.  Hayworth and Ford are both bringing their top game, and both play stunningly nuanced characters for any era in cinema.  

Anyway - it was an absolute pleasure to watch.  I look forward to diving into the features on my Criterion disc.


Wednesday, September 28, 2022

PodCast 208 D: "Inhumans" (2017) - Episodes 7 & 8 - A Superheroes Every Day PodCast w/ Danny and Ryan

 




Well. Against all sense or reason, we did it. Our final episode of intense coverage of Marvel's "Inhumans" comes to lengthy conclusion as we try to figure out what is happening and why and to whom and if anyone might care. We'll ponder Rubbermaid storage on the Moon, moonquakes, and trying to use the same hallway set over and over. Let's ponder a royal family you might just want to rise up against yourself.


SoundCloud 


YouTube


Music:
Paint It Black - Valerie Broussard
Don't Fear the Reaper - Denmark & Winters 



Superheroes Every Day Playlist

Everything Watch: Everything Everywhere All At Once (2022)




Watched:  09/24/2022
Format:  Amazon Streaming
Viewing:  First
Directors:  Dan Kwan, Daniel Scheinert

Look, one would really need to watch this movie 2-3 times and plan on several thousand words to really talk about Everything Everywhere All at Once (2022).  Suffice to say, this movie was very, very much in the wheelhouse for a lot of us, and if it was nominated for - and then won - awards, I might have respect for the awarding industry and begin to believe that it actually recognizes what cinema can do.

I am painfully and tragically aware that some will watch the movie and say "oh, they were trying too hard" or "that was just weird for weird's sake".  And, if that is your takeaway, I wish you well on your journey through life.  Sadly, you and I are going to view this rock we live on, and our time here, with wildly different eyes.

Everything Everywhere All at Once will be one of the films that I'm going to hold close, because we don't get them very often.  Whether you think the movie is saying something new - and, arguably, it is not - it is saying it beautifully, artfully, and humanely.  And maybe when we need it most.  

Sci-Fi and fantasy always are at their best when they are  allegories which may reflect, shift or challenge our views.  And whether we're considering response to a technological change and vast societal ripples or deeply personal stories, the closer we hew to recognizable reality, the greater the impact.  There's a reason we well up as Spock makes a sacrifice for the crew - it's a statement on the logic of serving the greater good, not on the problems of a made-up warp-core technology.  But it's a lesson forgotten again and again in comic books, television and movies, which become about the concepts and less about what it says to the audience about the world or themselves.  

SPOILERS

Monday, September 26, 2022

PodCast 212: "The Hunger" (1983) - a Halloween PodCast w/ SimonUK and Ryan





Watched:  08/08/2022
Format:  Bluray
Viewing: Unknown
Decade:  1980's
Director:  Tony Scott




Simon and Ryan bite into a legit 1980's cult classic that's big on mood, tone and lighting and shows rather than tells at every opportunity. If sexy vampires are your thing, we've got a cast that fits the bill, while also selling lifestyle porn and a great score. Join us for a movie that really makes it clear why you need a basement incinerator and an attic with plenty of storage space.


SoundCloud 


YouTube


Music:
Trio in E Flat, Op. 100  - Franz Schubert
Flower Duet/ Lakme - Delibes


Halloween 2022 & all Halloween/ Horror Films

Saturday, September 24, 2022

PodCast 208 C: "Inhumans" (2017) - Episodes 5 & 6 - A Superheroes Every Day PodCast w/ Danny and Ryan

this show contains a shocking amount of loitering in the woods 




Oh, the Inhumanity! We reach the plodding 5th and 6th episodes, which feel like a whole lot of filler and not a lot of thriller. Once you get past realizing Dave is one hell of a right-on dude, you're in for more casual disregard for the sanctity of life, slow working drug dealers, and trying to remember Sammy is on the show. Oh, and Maximus is very, very sensitive. Mostly, the show is filling space and killing time til we can get to the final two episodes.


SoundCloud 


YouTube


Music:
Paint It Black - Valerie Broussard
Don't Fear the Reaper - Denmark & Winters 


Superheroes Every Day Playlist!

Friday, September 23, 2022

Comedy Watch: Out of Office (2022)




Watched:  09/10/2022
Format:  Comedy Central DVR
Viewing: First
Director: Paul Lieberstein

Not so long ago, I got my bivalent COVID booster shot, and it basically took my ass out all weekend.  At some point I'd decided to DVR the Comedy Central movie Out of Office (2022) as it seemed to have okay comedic actors in it, and you never know.  

Leslie Jones, Ken Jeong, Jay Pharaoh, Oscar Nunez, Jason Alexander, Cheri Oteri, many others, and - most important, Lily the AT&T girl herself, Milana Veyntraub.  I think we've all been pulling for Veyntraub for a while, but she never really shows up anywhere other than AT&T ads.  She was almost a Marvel at one point, but her turn as Squirrel Girl has disappeared into the bin of history.

This movie, written and directed by King of the Hill and The Office alum Paul Lieberstein, is truly a complete waste of a viewers time.  Everything is vaguely joke shaped in a way that you can imagine working if it was workshopped a bit or didn't feel like something pulled out of a Judd Apatow movie's reel of stuff that didn't even make the bloopers.  The lead (tragically Veyntraub) is breathtakingly unlikable as written, which translates to - this is just like sitting at work with your worst colleagues, not people you want to spend time with.  And, worst, it tries to find some schmaltzy closure about the friends we found along the way at the end, which is utterly unearned.  

Tuesday, September 20, 2022

Happy Birthday, Sophia Loren



Happy Birthday to Sophia Loren, who may have been the one to first inspire the phrase "great googledy-moogledy"


Monday, September 19, 2022

PodCast 211: "Vampira/ Old Dracula" (1974) - a Halloween PodCast w/ SimonUK and Ryan




Watched:  07/26/2022
Format:  Amazon Streaming
Viewing: First
Decade:  1970's
Director:  Clive Donner




SimonUK and Ryan take a bite out of a 1974 vampire movie neither of them had previously seen, starring David Niven as a Dracula whose seen better days. It's 1970's hipsterism mixed with Blaxploitation meets horror meets comedy meets a sad trombone moment in the last 45 seconds. Join us as we kick off Halloween 2022!


SoundCloud 


YouTube


Music:
Vampira - David Whitaker 



Halloween and Horror

Sunday, September 18, 2022

80's Watch: American Gigolo (1980)




Watched:  09/17/2022
Format:  Streaming Paramount+
Viewing:  First
Director:  Paul Schrader

After watching Cat People for our Halloween podcasts, and making my way through Karina Longworth's You Must Remember This podcast series Erotic 80's, I figured I should get around to watching American Gigolo (1980) a movie I'd successfully not seen for 42 years but never actively avoided.  

I was doubly enticed by a Georgio Moroder soundtrack and finding out the movie had Bill Duke and Lauren Hutton, and was excited to see both for very different reasons.  

I should have watched the movie years ago after catching a cab in Las Vegas with some pals and - as I am wont to do - I began chatting with the cab driver who revealed to us his dream of becoming a gigolo.  And he used that word (with what seemed like a Russian accent, but I didn't ask).  We stayed in the car way after arriving at the hotel and listened to him discuss his strategy and goals.  He really, really wanted to sleep with older women for money.  I hope he's out there now with someone named "Gertrude" just raking it in.  

Anyway, I was completely ignorant of the plot of American Gigolo (1980), but what I assumed it to be was not what it is.   Honestly, I assumed it was a melodrama entirely about the life and loves of a gigolo in LA in 1980.  Seemed like there was plenty there as hunky Richard Gere impeccably banged his way across the Los Angeles landscape until finding real love or something.  And it is that, but with 45% of the runtime caught up in a murder plot that, frankly, is intensely telegraphed from the minute it kicks into gear (no pun intended).

I don't know exactly what I was expecting, but American Gigolo is also a movie that seems to live in a curious twilight zone of being frank about sex in many ways, but in comparison to, say, Body Heat which would show up a year later, it feels almost chaste.   Look, Lauren Hutton is...  a whole scene.  But I kinda wish the movie was just whatever was going on with Gere and Hutton.  

That said - this is a watershed film.  It isn't looking backward the way Body Heat would, it's leaning forward into adult-oriented fare but it also needs to serve an audience in 1980 who probably could have been interested in just the loves and issues of a gigolo, but would really get hooked by a crime story.  But I was kinda curious where the movie was going with Gere's alternately broken and abstracted sexuality which feels like it needs a lot more investigation than what it gets.

Everything you've heard about the hyper-stylization of the movie is true.  It's gorgeously shot and really does do its utmost to bring the various worlds of the Cali nouveau-rich and establishment rich as well as the occasional dive into other locales from gay clubs to political fundraisers.  It's a Playboy spread of the best in the lifestyle of the swinging gentleman, from cars to stereos to tasteful book collections and artfully placed desks.  

But now it almost looks quaint.  Miami Vice did this weekly on TV within a few years.  It's become a pastiche in other movies.  Still, it works.  And in no small part because the score on this thing (Moroder) - riffing occasionally on Blondie's Call Me is so f'ing great.*

All in all, the movie wasn't what I expected, and that took some adjustment.  What it did do, though, I think earns the reputation in some ways, less so in other ways (sexy ways).  But as a perfect artifact of "what set the tone for the 1980's?" you'd be hard pressed to find the thing better than this movie, which seems unaware the 1970's ever existed.  


*no one told six year old me blasting Call Me from the Chipmunk Punk album how the song became so mainstreamed  

Happy Belated Birthday, Cassandra Peterson




Happy Birthday to one of the greats of the Signal Watch faves pantheon, Cassandra Peterson!

This year, we read Peterson's memoir, Yours Cruelly, Elvira: Memoirs of the Mistress of the Dark.  And, kids, it is a wild @#$%ing ride.  

Here's to Ms. Peterson living her best life.