Monday, January 23, 2023

Screwball Watch: Libeled Lady (1936)




Watched:  01/23/2023
Format:  TCM
Viewing:  Second
Director:  Jack Conway

You can do worse than a movie with Myrna Loy and Jean Harlow.  But our male leads are Spencer Tracy and William Powell.  So.  

A newspaper accidentally runs a badly sourced story about a rich young woman (Loy), claiming she carried on with a married man, but it's not accurate.  Tracy is attempting to marry Harlow, but the emergency (threats of libel and slander suits) pulls him away from his own wedding.  Looking to find a way to get the $5 million lawsuit dropped, he employs scoundrel William Powell to set Loy up for a fall in front of cameras and make her lawsuit moot.  

There's nothing I don't like about the movie.  It's brilliantly conceived, acted and it's hysterical, careening from one sequence to another.  It's top tier talent making the most of a great set-up.  





Sunday, January 22, 2023

Watch Party Watch: Zardoz (1974)




Watched:  01/20/2023
Format:  Amazon Watch Party
Viewing:  First
Director:  John Boorman

So, my college pal, Robb, was a big fan of this movie, which really set the bar for me.  He's the same guy who would pitch a Saturday as "let's watch Stalker and then Bullit".   Circa 1999 or so, my brother, Steanso, and myself decided to give Zardoz (1974) a whirl, and I think we made it twenty minutes in before giving up and watching Xena or Cleopatra 2525.  

I will not say I hated or even disliked Zardoz, while acknowledging - this is not a movie for everyone.  The film contains a million concepts and ideas all crammed into one movie.  I don't think it really succeeds (for me) as story, commentary or entertainment, but it is absolutely a thing to watch for its tremendous ambition, low-budget-swing-for-the-fences approach, and unique visuals.  It's trying to do some Very Important Stuff via sci-fi, and I can't say it fails, exactly.  The ideas are interesting enough.  It's just not a movie that is amazingly fun to watch (sober).

Friday, January 20, 2023

Friday Watch Party: ZARDOZ (1974)



I've never seen Zardoz beyond the first 20 minutes, and so now I'm going to watch it.  We're ALL going to watch it.  

Here's all you need to know:  

I would kill for 1/200th of the confidence it takes to say "yes, put me on film in that"



Anyway, I am told the movie occurs in 2023, which is now.  So, put on your red diaper and hurt-me boots, and let's watch this thing.

Day:  Friday, 01/20/2023
Time:  8:30 Central, 6:30 Pacific
Service:  Amazon
Cost:  $4, and a small bit of your sanity


(link live 10 minutes before show)

BEHOLD!  The trailer.

Thursday, January 19, 2023

Happy Birthday to American Royalty, Dolly Parton



Best birthday wishes to America's reigning queen

80's Watch: Running Scared (1986)




Watched:  01/17/2023
Format:  HBOmax
Viewing:  Unknown
Director:  Peter Hyams


Running Scared (1986) was a movie I remember watching a bunch during the window when we had whatever movie channel carried it in the late 1980's, which is the last time I watched the film.   I haven't really missed it, but it kept coming up thanks to the power of Michael McDonald's "Sweet Freedom".  And, Jamie had never seen it and got tired of me saying "yeah, we could watch that some time."  So, we did.

I have no idea how the movie was considered when I was a kid.  I'm not looking up reviews or box office now.  As a middle-schooler, of course I loved loose cannon, wise-cracking cops who get to shoot guns, get into shenanigans and are repeatedly shown to be right.  As an adult, this is a movie about wise-cracking cops repeatedly abusing their authority, engaging in police brutality, tampering with evidence, getting witnesses and stoolies killed, stealing from the evidence locker, refusing to follow basic procedure, and never having to explain major shoot outs and acts of violence.  It is wiiiiiild.  This was what we wanted to watch in the 1980's.

The film is also constantly asking "so, this isn't racist, right?"  But, man, we sure had no problem showing the only Latinos in a movie as crooks or aiding crooks.  

To say it hasn't aged well is an understatement.

The basic plot is that Chicago's loosest of loose cannon cops are made to take vacation after stepping on the toes of a different vice sting (and establishing our villain in Jimmy Smits).   They've always been "shoot first and ask questions later" guys about their own safety and that of the the greater Chicagoland area.   But while in Key West, apparently landing women way out of their league, they impulsively buy a bar and plan to retire in 30 days.  As short-timers, they suddenly realize they could get shot and die.  Thus the title.  But it doesn't really effect the plot more than, like, twice.      

The movie is pitched as an action-comedy, but is short on both.  It's a long movie, and it didn't really need to be because it's a movie that doesn't really have anything interesting to say, and is a basic "cops catch drug kingpin" film that was being churned out every week back in the 1980's.*  

It's not that it's not funny at all.  It's sorta funny, but it basically feels like bits of improv more than any focused effort to be a comedy.  The violence is sporadic and feels out of whack from the mugging Crystal and Hines are up to, so when they get super serious at the end of the film, you're kinda-like "you two dipshits have been yukking it up and putting the entire city of Chicago in danger every twenty minutes this whole movie, and now you're concerned?"

Crystal does his familiar stuff from the era, Hines is charming.  We're told both are more physically appealing than I would guess they are.  And it's a reminder that roles for women in 1986 were mostly to stand around and shake heads at the antics of our heroes.  It also has Joe Pantoliano, Dan Hedaya (of course), Jon Gries, Larry Hankin, and probably other 80's and 90's faces you might enjoy.

I didn't hate it, but it's more interesting as a dated artifact of a bygone era than as a good movie.  I dunno.  Maybe I'll watch it again in another 33 years.

But, hey, it's fun to see the Chicago of the 1980's that isn't in the Hughes-filmed mini-mansion North Side suburbs.



*I always found it peculiar that coked-up producers were making so many movies about stopping cocaine.  That would be like me making a movie about stopping a cheese-monger.  

Tuesday, January 17, 2023

PodCast 228: "Terminator 3" (2003) - A Movies of Doom/ ArnieFest/ SimonUK Cinema Selection w/ Ryan




Watched:  01/08/2023
Format:  HBOmax
Viewing: Second
Decade:  2000's
Director:  Jonathan Mostow




Si and Ryan are doomed to a fate they can't escape, It's time for more robots from the future. Kind of dumb robots, but robots nonetheless. It's the first post-Cameron sequel and maybe it cooked too long or something. But it has its good spots! But. Anyway.


SoundCloud 


YouTube


Music:
Terminator 3 Theme - Marco Beltrami

Terminator Posts and PodCasts:




Simon UK Cinema Series




Arnie Fest Playlist

Monday, January 16, 2023

Shatner Watch: Star Trek II and Shatner in Austin

 

O Captain!  My Captain!



Watched:  01/15/2023
Format:  uhhhh....  we watched the movie on a screen and then Shatner was there!  Right in front of us!
Viewing:  Movie - 1,000th, Shatner - First
Director:  Nicholas Meyer/ No one tells Bill what to do


I won't comment too much on the actual movie of Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan (1982).  It was watching the movie with a 1000 people in an symphony hall.  Correction - watching it with 1000 Trekkies and Trekkers.  Both you and I have seen this movie dozens of times.  I will say this - it's easy to forget what Kirstie Alley was like on the big screen, but she certainly was a presence (RIP and good golly).  And, of course, seeing the ship-to-ship combat on the big screen is always a pleasure and needs to be more of what Star Trek does when it's not Strange New Worlds-ing.

Sunday, January 15, 2023

90's Watch: Slacker (1990)




Watched:  01/15/2023
Format:  HBOmax
Viewing:  Unknown
Director:  Richard Linklater

I'm pretty sure I saw Slacker during a limited run in summer of 1990 in Houston.  Apparently wide release occurred in 1991, but I know I saw it in 1990.  So.  The film was part of the dawn of the indie film movement that would define film over the next decade.  In some minute ways, it also opened the door to Austin, TX as a cool, hep city - which is a designation which will eventually fuck up a city beyond all recognition, which is where we're at today with the Capitol City.

But in the summer of 1990, just moved from Austin to Spring, TX, somehow my brother and I talked our mom into driving us downtown Houston from our suburban enclave to see the movie.  To say "art film" is not my mom's bag is putting it mildly (it's more of a "what are you talking?" than an angry aversion), but she knew she'd see familiar sights as the movie was shot around the central core of Austin as it was then, and heard the movie was a comedy.  So.  We loaded into the GMC conversion van and made our way downtown.  I believe film-participant and former Butthole Surfers drummer Teresa Taylor (RIP) was in the audience with us, but could never be sure.

Doc Watch: Harlan County, USA (1976)




Watched:  01/14/2023
Format:  HBOmax
Viewing:  First
Director:  Barbara Kopple

One of the things I wonder about as The Kids have decided that labor movements are a fine idea and that they should unionize is if they're well educated on the incredibly bloody history of labor movements in the US.  I'm not recommending one path or the other (I am, but this isn't that blog) but things tend to get really dark when the operators see the minions getting organized.  

To a 20-something working at Starbucks in 2022 or 2023, it may seem like the good fight, but in the places Starbucks tends to exist, you can usually just pick up and go work somewhere else if the deal isn't what you want.  And, of course, 1972 is ancient history when old-timey things happened.  Like the events of the documentary, Harlan County, USA (1976) a film about striking coal minors in Kentucky and the various factors at play and persons involved. And it's as far removed from today's labor conversations and the way work once worked in the US as the Pullman Strike is to organizing baristas.

Saturday, January 14, 2023

Watch Party Watch: The Woman in Green (1945)




Watched:  01/13/2023
Format:  Amazon Watch Party
Viewing:  First
Decade:  1940's
Director:  Roy William Neill

I wasn't expecting much, and this movie delivered not much!

Nah, it was... fine.  Especially as it was only 66 minutes.  You're in, you're out.  

Once again Basil Rathbone plays Holmes to perfection, and once again Nigel Bruce is playing Watson as a complete weirdo boob, setting the stage for a thousand imitators after.

I wish I'd noticed this was a wartime film, because it would have explained why the men in this movie, minus Rathbone, are all at least sexagenarians or older.  

Women are turning up around London - murdered!  And missing a finger!  Is a new Jack the Ripper on the loose?  One with penchant for ladyfingers?  

Holmes is brought in, and suspects (as always) Moriarty.  Anyway - it's a kind of clever Moriarty ruse.  He's having the frankly pretty good looking Hillary Brooke lure rich, society men to her flat where she hypnotizes them.  Moriarty slips a finger into their pocket and when they wake up, they think maybe they murdered someone and fall for a blackmail scheme.  It's... woefully overly complex and there's a bodycount that was always going to draw too much attention.  

Anyway - it's pretty okay!  But I will say - it takes a long, long time to get to the usual Holmes sleuthing, really to the point where I wondered aloud "this is the weirdest structure for a Holmes mystery".  But once it kicks into gear, there you are.