Noirvember Watch: On Dangerous Ground (1951)

Watched:  11/20/2024

Format:  Criterion

Viewing:  Second

Director:  Nicholas Ray - w/ Ida Lupino

It's a Noirvember to Remember, and I am way behind on my noir intake.  I am also way behind on my Ida Lupino intake, in general.  

I'd watched this one previously on Noir Alley, and liked it pretty well.  On a second viewing, I think I appreciated it more - likely because I knew where and how Lupino was showing up, and I wasn't halfway through a movie wondering where the hell the co-star was.

I can't always account for how some movies stick with you, but certainly the imagery in this movie has come back to me in ways I wasn't really expecting from the first time I saw the movie.  The film moves between a post-war noir setting of urban squalor to the snowy mountains of Colorado, shot on location.  Ryan in his city-cop coat chasing down our killer in two sequences against the natural backdrop is something.  As is the darkened cottage where where Lupino lives, with her tactile posts to guide her through her own home.

It doesn't hurt that both Ryan and Lupino are memorable in almost any role.

Noir Watch: The Sniper (1952)

Watched:  11/18/2024

Format:  Criterion

Viewing:  Third

Director:  Edward Dmytryk

Watched Sniper (1952) again.  I re-read my second write-up of the movie, and it says everything I would say about it now.  It's a social-issues crime movie, and a pretty good one.  And beautifully shot, imho.  Looked great on Criterion.

Here's my first write-up of the movie.  

I mostly just always get irritated that they bump off Marie Windsor so early in the movie, but that's a me-problem.  And it does land exactly how it should in the movie.  Poor Marie.

90's Regret Watch: Armageddon (1998)

this @#$%ing pile of *&^%

Watched:  11/16/2024

Format:  Hulu

Viewing:  First

Director:  Michael Bay

I write this post from beyond the grave.  

I'm not sure what it was that, specifically, convinced my soul to abandon my body during Armageddon (1998).  There were so, so many options - from Ben Affleck leading the cast in singing "Leaving on a Jet Plane" to Bruce Willis shooting up a functioning oil rig with a shotgun to Liv Tyler disrupting everything in NASA Mission Command screaming about her "daddy".  Or maybe just the premise of the film altogether.  But with 30 extremely loud and stupid minutes left to go, I realized I had passed on to the blogging platform in the sky.

This movie is essentially the redneck fever dream of people furious at other people who paid attention in school or watch PBS because that shit ain't cool.  Michael Bay and Bruckheimer are convinced only nerds care how things work and what the movie needs to do is think of funny and rad things to show - but are neither funny nor that rad.

I'm not averse to anything about the movie on paper.  A ragtag crew is called in to save the world and blow up an asteroid aimed at Earth.  Sure.  Why not?  The actors lined up are *good* to *great*.  So the challenges arrive in every writing, directing, editing and other creative decision that went into the film. 

WTF Watch: Kissin' Cousins (1964)

Watched:  11/15/2024

Format:  Amazon

Viewing:  First

Director:  Gene Nelson

In this movie, Elvis comes down hard on the side of @#$%ing one's cousin(s). 

This is not me inferring something.  This is what happens in this movie from a few different angles. 

To be sure, one is hard pressed to find a more problematic movie than Kissin' Cousins (1964), the movie I watched last night.  And when people say they want to go back to a better America - I want to say "this America?  Cousin @#$%ing America?"  The contemporary reviews of this movie sure weren't great, but they also don't seem overly concerned with how this movie is about two things:  putting ICBM siloes on US soil and normalizing gettin' with yer kin.

It also features suggestions that the best way to win a woman is to pursue her relentlessly and a little bit violently, despite her express wishes.  It goes in hard for sexualizing the infantilization of women.  And probably a dozen other things, but those are some of the eye-poppers.

Like a lot of Elvis movies, it's not so much a musical as an excuse to roll out a new Elvis record.  There's some plot, but it's a framework to stop the eight minutes' worth of story for Elvis to sing a song.  In this way, it's not so much a musical - which uses songs to carry the story and have characters express themselves - as a series of music videos interspersed with a handful of forgettable and upsetting songs between goofily delivered plot points.

Action Watch: Monkey Man (2024)

Watched:  11/12/2024

Format:  Amazon

Viewing:  First

Director:  Dev Patel

When I saw the trailer, I recall wanting to see Monkey Man (2024).  But, honestly, 2024 has been another year of WTF, as every year has been since we lost Bowie.  And, events conspiring as they did, I missed the film until now.  

Why now?  Well, Jamie said "I want to watch an action movie", and I was really looking hard at Lady Snowblood, which she hasn't seen yet.  But I said "you know, that movie features so much trauma stuff and violence, so maybe not."  And, instead, chose the light action-comedy, Monkey Man.*  But, curiously!, there's a really, really similar plot line between Lady Snowblood and Monkey Man, and both have some pretty crazy amounts of balletic violence going on.

I am the first to admit - I am, at best, vaguely aware of Indian politics and current events/ issues.  And while I followed the film, I'm also certain I missed piles of nuance and subtext that someone more culturally literate than myself could track.  

The gist is, years ago a young boy is a fan of the mythical character, Hanuman (a monkey figure).  Through flashback interspersed, we learn that his village was burned by a sort of religious figure who is also an industrialist who used the cops to enforce his desires - like taking the land owned and occupied by minority ethnicities or religious factions.  In the course of the village's destruction, the Kid's mother is murdered in front of him.

BatTV Watch: The Penguin

Well, the final episode of The Penguin dropped.  

Don't read this if you haven't finished the show.

All in all, I really don't have any major complaints about the series.  And y'all know me.  I love a good bout of complaining.  

I guess if I was to complain, I'd say that the back-and-forth sometimes felt a bit unnecessary, regarding who was on top.  I get it was a reversed Red Harvest situation, but...  sometimes it felt a little loosey-goosey.  I also wish the Maroni plotline felt a bit more built out - but that's me wanting more Shohreh Aghdashloo.  Also - I don't know how the Falcone/ Gigante mob was supposed to work, how big it was supposed to be, etc...  it sometimes seemed huge and other times like it was maybe 8 guys.  

But these are nits which I have picked.

On the whole, it's kind of astounding.  And for all the good Marvel shows, it really did feel like new territory and showing audiences what was possible.

It's not a secret I like a good crime story or gangster story (and, no, I probably haven't seen that one thing you want to talk about immediately. Stop asking.).  But from the first episode, it was clear The Penguin was going to be better than it needed to be.  By the 4th episode, you kind of knew that this show is going to be held up as one of those highlights of a genre that makes folks ask "why don't they make more stuff like X?"  

Doc Watch: National Geographic's "Endurance (2024)"

Watched:  11/10/2024

Format:  Disney+

Viewing:  First

Director:  Jimmy Chin, Natalie Hewit, Elizabeth Chai Vasarhelyi

If you have any passing interest in the the Shackleton expedition, this is both a good summary of what happened - giving the viewer a pretty good idea how Shackleton's expedition to cross Antarctica did not, in fact, work out - but somehow the crew survived two years of nightmare conditions after their ship was first iced-in and then sank.  

The story is paralleled by the contemporary search for The Endurance - lost in the ocean at almost 2 miles down.  

The doc is Nat Geo-worthy, and therefore very watchable.  But here's the thing - Shackleton's expedition was launched in 1914 (it's amazing how small the world got in a 100 years) - and so he was smart enough to bring a filmographer and photographer.  So!  Get ready to see actual filmed footage of the expedition.

Perhaps more controversial - because everyone survived, they were interviewed later.  And so we get snippets of their interviews (not an issue) but excerpts from their diaries are then read by AI versions of those people's voices derived from the interviews.  Which... I guess we can do that now? 

It's a good effect - especially mixed with the silent footage an some re-creations of the events that couldn't be filmed.  

I'm gonna try to let all of that pass without too judgment.  We're in a new era of media, and I'm not sure that didn't have an interesting effect.  I know we're all supposed to be mad at AI all the time, but it's an interesting use of the technology.

There is a moment in the doc that left me dumbfounded where the scientists say "hey, we ran this program to guess the drift of the Endurance based on some details in the original logs" - and if you're me, you're staring goggle-eyed that they mounted this whole expedition and are more than 10 days in when they thought this up.  Like - not to be a dick, but I literally *assumed* they'd done this just to get funding.

All's well that ends well, and the film does wrap up with nice footage of the Endurance at the bottom of the Antarctic waters

Crime Watch: Wolfs (2024)

Watched:  11/09/2024

Format:  Apple+

Viewing:  First

Director:  John Watt

We've fallen into a pattern on the weekends.  Fridays - we watch something silly, funny, etc...  On Saturday, if we aren't busy, we watch something we've meant to catch on streaming.  And, Wolfs (2024) is one of the films, as is the Matt Damon one also sitting in queue over on Apple+, a service I'm not all that interested in minus MLS soccer.  But it's free through T-Mobile and was the home for Ted Lasso, and so here I sit.

The draw, of course, is that you liked George Clooney and Brad Pitt's dynamic in the Oceans 11 movies that happened more than 20 years ago.  And I did.  And the movie was essentially free, so... we watched it.

I will confess - I am not in love with the work of writer/ director John Watt, and so when his name popped up at the beginning, I kind of braced myself.  Watt turns in movies that are... fine.  They're never bad, but they're also never exactly sparking with auteurism or breaking new ground.  

The central conceit of the movie is that a Manhattan DA (Amy Ryan, always welcome) is frolicking with a young man who is not her husband, in a hotel room, when he falls off the bed and seemingly dies after hitting his head.

She has a phone number for a cleaner - a job I assume might exist? - who covers up the accidents and mis-doings of powerful and wealthy people.  We got this idea from Pulp Fiction, where Harvey Keitel was absolutely amazing as The Wolf - which is where I assume they took the name for this film.  And let me tell you how old one feels when a movie they watched 30 years ago is referenced this way.  But this is how culture works.

If you were counting on loving the banter between Clooney and Pitt, you basically get the idea and then it just keeps happening for 1/2 of the movie.  Which is a real YMMV proposition.  I get the feeling Clooney and Pitt and Watt were having a grand time doing this.  But it feels like the movie just takes forever to get going, and the gags it wants to do - this is a comedy - are a light chuckle more than a laugh-out-loud proposition.  Plus, it takes a minute to figure out how goofy this world is that we're in, as there's really no clues about it until... I dunno, 45 minutes in?

I also cannot for the life of me figure out why Amy Ryan's character was picking up this absolute dweeb of a guy.

Anyway, the movie is fine.  It really doesn't mark out any new territory, but if you're looking for a lower-budget hang with the guys you liked around 2001, you can do way worse.  I do like a good hang with these guys!  And a walk-on by Richard Kind (who publicly said this year he doesn't turn any roles down, which is hilarious).  

SPOILERS

The movie ends in a sort of Butch and Sundance moment, but apparently they're making another one.  Which... I think Butch and Sundance also got an off-brand sequel so maybe that's fine.

The back 1/3rd of the movie is, for my dollar, what the whole movie could have/ should have been - a sort of absurdist fantasy of this world.  And maybe the sequel will lean into what worked, now that we've gotten past the squabbling part.

Swashbuckle Watch: The Adventures of Robin Hood (1938)

when your artist has no idea who Olivia DeHavilland is

Watched:  11/08/2024

Format:   Amazon

Viewing:  Unknown

Director:  Michael Curtiz and William Keighley

I always relate this story, but back in high school when the Costner-starring Robin Hood: Price of Thieves came out, TBS showed this on TV and ran a call-in poll which was better, and this won in a landslide.  And, I think with good reason.  The Adventures of Robin Hood (1938) is just a banger from start to finish.  I don't know if I consider it comfort watching, but it kind of is.

Anyway, it is funny...  the idea of Robin Hood is that he steals from the rich to give to the poor.  And - he does!  Sort of.  But more than that, he's fighting a guerilla war in favor of a legitimate government instead of an usurper - who is treating his people (the Saxons) with cruelty simply because he has the resources to do so.  

I don't know how much of the story of Robin Hood is real, but what we do know is that the Normans and Saxons did not love each other.  In this movie, the Norman Prince John snagged Richard's throne when Richard was captured and held for ransom (this actually happened, but it's way more complicated than the movie suggests).

So, Robin doesn't care for what he sees as an illegal seizure of government - and is really irritated with how John is treating the Saxons, and begins picking off the cruelest enforcers and showing everyone up.  With a lot of joie de vivre.  

Ie:  he isn't just robbing the rich as they traverse England.  He's actively undermining the government and efforts of the oppressors while using their resources to support the oppressed.  We tend not to think of this as a overtly political movie, and it's... not.  Prince John (Claude Rains) and Sir Guy (Basil Rathbone) are cartoon villains.  But there's certainly a weight to movie tied to the politics that gets echoed over and over throughout history - and speaks to why maybe monarchies are a shitty way to run a country for everyone but the monarch and their peeps.

All that aside, it's a fun, rollicking adventure with explosive technicolor, and Olivia De Havilland having perfect teeth and laying the groundwork for Princess Leia's wardrobe.  It has the best sword fight in western film - still!  85+ years on!  Amazing sets.  And so many be-dazzled outfits.

Anyway - give it whirl.  It's a classic for the whole family for a reason.  Action, romance, comedy, drama...  you may like it! 

Noirvember Watch: Pickup Alley (1957)

Watched:  11/7/2024

Format:  Criterion

Viewing:  First

Director:  John Gilling

It's Noirvember, so I'm trying to get a few of ye olde Noir films in.  Luckily, Criterion is here to offer up the goods with three separate categories of noir.  I got lazy and picked the category "Columbia Noir" which includes some Brit Noir.  

I will be 100% honest and say, I was just like "Victor Mature.  Sounds good."   I knew nothing about this movie until the credits started crawling by.  Had I seen the poster, I would have known THIS IS A PICTURE ABOUT DOPE!  I might also have noticed this is European film - and, in fact, a pretty British film.  Directed by a Brit and produced by one of the Bond-famous Brocolis (Cubby) and Irving Allen, who worked in both England and the US.  

The cast is anchored by Victor Mature, who looks mildly upset the whole time, but who has no character to work with or speak of.  He's just the relentless hero.  I assume this movie really got in the way of his European golfing vacation.

Anita Ekberg plays The Dame, and is... fine?  If you wonder what the big deal was with Ekberg and why you've heard her name, his movie is a pretty good argument for why.  Lastly, the movie stars Trevor Howard, who was in sort of everything - but Superman nerds will flip out realizing this is the guy who told Jor-El to be reasonable in Superman while the planet was set to explode.

And Trevor Howard is *great* in this as a mastermind drug kingpin.  Reviews at the time mostly agree.

What surprised me watching this, with the name Broccoli floating around in my head, is that there's certainly some Bond DNA here.  It's very light, but it's about a relentless government fellow pursuing an established mastermind across Europe, treating each place as an exotic locale and the locals as scenery.  There's, of course, a beautiful woman wrapped up with our villain who is doing his dirty work and doesn't like it.

It's not a 1:1, but once the idea is in your head, it's hard to shake.  

The idea is:  Mature's sister was about to finger Trevor Howard for the NYPD when he figured it out and killed her.  Since, Mature's been a mad-bull on the streets hoping to punch his way to the mysterious McNally.  They get a lead and he's sent to England to work with InterPol (the International Police, not the band).  Shenanigans happen and Mature and Co. get Ekberg's fingerprints and begin tracking her to get to Howard.  Soon, they're in Lisbon.  Then in Rome.  Then Athens.  It's sort of one long, continent-wide chase.  

It's not a great movie, but it gets the job done.  Lots of action, some amazing locations, camera work, and a score that does tons of heavy lifting.  

It is noir?  Sort of.  Close enough.