John Romita, Sr. Merges With the Infinite

John Romita, Sr., one of the classic Marvel bullpen of creators of the 60's-era (and well beyond) has passed.  

Much as Carl Barks was "the Good Duck Artist" to a generation or three, Romita was, to me, THE Spider-Man artist.  Sure, he did plenty else, but his work on Spider-Man was so foundational to the character, his design and humanity brought to each panel, a key player in re-figuring the style at Marvel, and therefore the style of modern comics.  

The world of Spider-Man was surely full of colorful characters, but they weren't defined by their powers, they had unique personalities and character, and Romita brought it right to the surface.  

He was also the artist who brought classic moments we're still dealing with in comics.

Like, the intro of Mary Jane Watson.

and, of course, everything with the Stacy's.

And that's how everything ended up with Gwen and Captain Stacy.  Everyone cool and living happily ever after.

I love this era of Spidey.  It's the height of personal and super-hero drama, and has Spidey working in a milieu I think he operates in best.  And when I think of this era, sure I think the title is well written, but it's also the Marvel Method, which means Stan worked out a storyline with the artist and cut them loose, to come back and fill in dialog later.  So it's artistic storytelling, refusing to rely on text or words.

We'll miss knowing Romita Sr. was out there.  We lost a giant this week.

Ghibli Watch: My Neighbor Totoro (1988)

Watched:  06/09/2023

Format:  Max

Viewing:  First

Director:  Miyazaki

So, aside from a movie or two, I had never really delved into the Studio Ghibli output.  Sue me.  I love animation, but I love a lot of things, and I always thought someone would foist it upon me, and that hasn't happened.  Thus, in 2023, I finally decided to start making my way through the Ghibli output.  

It does seem silly, however, to try to add to the conversation on these much-watched, well-loved films with millions and millions of fans, and plenty of ink spilled over them.  All I'll really say is:  what an absolute delight of a movie.  I felt like I got the full Miyazaki experience on this one.

PodCast 244: "The Big Lebowski" (1998) - A Coen Bros Rewatch w/ Stuart and Ryan

Watched:  05/28/2023

Format:  BluRay

Viewing: Unknown

Decade:  1990's

Director:  Coen Bros.

For more ways to listen

Stuart and Ryan try to keep their minds limber to keep up with all the moving pieces and new things that have come to light. We're rewatching a cult favorite and maybe the Coen Bros. best remembered film? Anyway, we don't roll on shabbos, but we do podcast. So, join us for a convo on a fan favorite!

SoundCloud 

The Signal Watch PodCast · 244: "The Big Lebowski" (1998) - A Coen Bros Rewatch w/ Stuart and Ryan

YouTube

Music:

Just Dropped In (To See What Condition My Condition Was In) - Kenny Rogers & The First Edition 

Dead Flowers - Townes Van Zandt 

Coen Bros. Films

The Signal Watch PodCast · Coen Bros.

The Iron Sheik Merges With the Infinite

Wrestler Hossein Khosrow Ali Vaziri, known to generations of fans as the colorful character The Iron Sheik, has passed.  

The Iron Sheik was representative of WWF/ WWE's early smash success via playing out America's psychoses via avatars of various concepts in the zeitgeist appearing in the ring, often to battle the heroes of the WWF.  The Iron Sheik was, of course, the threat Americans saw of the Middle East and Saudi Arabia in the post-gas-crisis world.  

Vaziri was not, however, actually Saudi.  He was from Iran, and I have a very hard time figuring out when and how he came to the States, but it was in the early 70's and tied originally to Olympic wrestling.  I think.  That he would choose not to villainize Iran in his heel-turn of the 1980s is not a shock.

Like many kids of my generation, I liked the villains as much as the heroes of the WWE, and The Iron Sheik was a favorite.  With social media, he resurfaced, pounding out tweets in the broken dialect he employed as his character to cutting and hilarious effect.  I think I saw him tweeting just last week, so his passing is a bit of a surprise.

I'm aware of the brow-furrowing concern that media cops have put on wrestling then and now.  I get it.  But if I may... not once did I think The Iron Sheik was representative of anything but silliness and sweet wrestling moves, and while not fitting a rubric of acceptable, he's still a beloved figure of a certain era of my life.

Godspeed, you maniac.

Review Watch: Spider-Man - Into the Spider-Verse (2018)

Watched:  06/02/2023

Format:  Blu-Ray

Viewing:  fifth?  I don't know

Director:   Peter Ramsey, Bob Persichetti, Rodney Rothman

Not going to write this up, but we did a re-watch in preparation for Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse, which we saw Saturday morning.  

This movie holds up like crazy.

80's Watch: Mad Max: Beyond Thunderdome (1985)

Watched:  06/02/2023

Format:  Watch Party

Viewing:  Unknown

Director:  George Miller

In memory of the great Tina Turner, this week we put on Mad Max: Beyond Thunderdome (1985) for our group watch party.  This is also the last one for the summer (or longer).  Life is resuming, and while I enjoy the experience, my own life and those of the folks who participated, has changed once again.  

Anyway, this was a movie I saw at age 10 and in the theater.  Subsequently, it played interminably on HBO, I believe, during one of the periods where my parents would pay for premium cable, and I'd seen it a lot during a crucial window in my life.  I'm well aware that it's not a patch on The Road Warrior, and in its way, not as fresh as the first Mad Max.  And, it's just not as good as Fury Road, which feels like the real distillation of the concepts and final word on the idea of Mad Max - until George Miller does it again.

But it's still a watchable movie and has more ideas per minute than a season of most sci-fi TV.  And like all sci-fi that works, it feels plausible and comments back to us about who we are.  

This Mad Max film sees Max wander into a town where capitalism has met with the apocalypse and you can't enter unless you have something to trade.  Having recently been relieved of his camels(!) and car, Max is recruited to kill the muscle of a brains/ muscle combo by the person who founded Bartertown but has lost control of it to an engineer who is turning pig shit into methane.  

Like I say: lots of ideas.

Friday Watch Party: Mad Max - Beyond Thunderdome

Last week we lost world-famous musician and performer Tina Turner.  

Turner didn't appear in that many films, but she was in a starring role in the least likely of films, the third Mad Max installment, Beyond Thunderdome.  She plays the mayor-figure and matriarch of a town in post-apocalyptic Australia, and she has magnificent earrings.  

Opinions vary on Turner in the film, but we've been team-Aunty Entity since we literally jumped into a van full of kids being taken to the movie at the local cinema.  But this is also, simply, a pro-Tina Turner household.

Day:  June 2, 2023

Time:  8:30 Central, 6:30 Pacific

Runtime:  107 minutes

Cost:  $4.29 HD / $3.79 SD

I'm realizing I saw this when I was 10, and, hoo-boy.  My parents were paying zero attention to what I was watching as a kid.

CLICK HERE TO ENTER THUNDERDOME

(link live 10 minutes before show)

PODCAST @ Superheroes Every Day: Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania (2023)

Watched:  05/19/2023

Format:  Disney+

Viewing:  First

Director:  Peyton Reed

Well.  I was going to watch it eventually.  

Danny (of Superheroes Every Day) and I talk the 2023 critical kryptonite and box office disappointment that is one of Marvel's greatest missteps to date.  Join us as we pick up this particular dud and keep turning it over to figure out what worked, what didn't, and how this thing even came out of Marvel Studios.

Part I

Part II

Part III

Memorial Day 2023

 

Here in the U.S., it's Memorial Day, a day in which Americans remember those who died in service to the country and a reminder of the sacrifice many have made.  

TV Watch: Mrs. Davis (2023)

Let me start by throwing whatever weight I may have to sway your viewing habits (which I assume is zero) into checking out Mrs. Davis, the 8-part TV series currently available on Peacock.  

I can provide a cursory description of the show, but it will be just the barest of bones of what the show actually is, as I don't want to spoil anything (yet) and I don't want to mislead anyone.

What I can tell you is that it's somewhat about a nun living in a parallel timeline where 10 years ago an AI came online that can speak directly to people.  In the years since its arrival, it's started to end war, famine, poverty, etc... and helped people find personal fulfillment.  Maybe.

It also sends people on quests, which, if they succeed means they earn "wings".  

Our nun, sister Simone, joined a convent just as the AI was coming into being and hates the AI, which she believes was responsible for the death of her father - a stage magician.  As her world is rocked by a rapid series of events, Simone is reunited with a childhood friend, and takes on a mission to take the AI down no matter the cost.

It's an action comedy.

And I love it.

It's also remarkably prescient, given this was filmed some time ago, and released just on the heels of the ChatGPT explosion and very real reconsideration of what AI may do to our cultural landscape, let alone one that speaks directly to an all too willing public.  We've all seen sci-fi stuff that seems eerily near-future and predictive, and this is that (in some ways).

I only really know Betty Gilpin from Netflix's wrestling show GLOW where she was amazing and a stand-out even in a cast of stand-outs.  But she's quietly one of the funniest actors I can name, effortlessly conveying internal conflicts and spontaneous reactions that are wildly authentic for someone who has been on two fairly over-the-top shows.  She's the rock that makes you believe the insanity, all without being a exactly a straight-man to the antics.  But definitely our POV of sanity in an insane world.

Or maybe not.  In this case, she's just our anchor POV in a world that is clearly mad.  She's found her peace living among her sisters, bottling and selling jam.  She has a bit of a romantic relationship she keeps to herself.

But the AI needs her, and it doesn't want to be ignored.  And when doing things for the AI is the biggest clout-generator on the planet?  Man.  

Anyway, I am just scratching the surface, but the tone, zig-zagging narrative, willing embrace of total chaos in storytelling - while telling an air-tight, somewhat moving story...  man.  That's hard to do.  All while making me occasionally laugh like a loon (often just Gilpin's "what now...?" expressions get the biggest moments for me).  If you told me this is where the show was going from the first episode to the last, I would have been deeply confused, but yet it does it all, seamlessly.  And hilariously.

I'll do another spoileriffic post later, but as we enter the long weekend, I wanted to put an offering on the table.