Return to Swashbuckle Watch: The Mask of Zorro (1998)

Watched:  08/27/2021

Format:  Amazon Prime

Viewing:  Unknown

Decade:  1990's

Director:  Martin Campbell

Having had just watched 1940's The Mark of Zorro, it seemed like a good idea to check out other iterations of the character.  I've been watching episodes of the low-budget 1990's TV show, but the last big splash Zorro made at cinemas were the two films starring Antonio Banderas and Catherine Zeta-Jones.

The Mask of Zorro (1998) came out just as I graduated college, and was considered kind of a minor action triumph at the time of its release.  It doesn't speak to the future of superhero film, instead playing like the best of the best of the pulp-hero films of the 1990's, but this movie and it's sequel The Legend of Zorro, spoke to the weird world building and return to franchises that would become a staple of media by the 2010's.  

For some reason, this movie is about Don Diego de la Vega failing and the shenanigans coming to an end, with two decades spent in a jail cell.  It's frankly a lazy and unbelievable scenario that Don Rafael would not have seen Zorro killed, as bloodthirsty as this film portrays its villains, but it does prop up the rest of the story - which also doesn't make a ton of sense.  In the melee, Don Diego sees his wife accidentally shot, and Rafael yoinks the baby, taking her with him as he runs off to Spain as the Mexican Revolution of 1821 will unseat him and possibly see him killed by revolutionaries.  

Friday Watch Party: BURLESQUE (2010)

So, I used to go to this woman's house to get my haircut, and she took forever because she was watching TV or movies while she cut my hair.  And the one that kind of broke me was the 2010 attempt at being good, Burlesque.  I didn't see all of it, but I saw enough of it.

First problem:  your lead is not a professional actor.  

Second problem:  somehow the movie makes seasoned actors seem like they, too, cannot act.  

Third problem:  the movie was written and directed by a guy whose credits included doing, like, two Pussycat Dolls videos

Feature, not a bug:  the movie is complete nonsense.  

Starring:  CHER, Alan Cumming, Peter Gallagher, Stanley Tucci, Kristen Bell, Julianne Hough, and Christina Aguilera AND MORE

DAY:  Friday, 08/27

TIME:  8:00 PM Central, 6:00 PM Pacific

Streaming Service:  Amazon Watch Party

Link to movie here (it's working now, H)

Swashbuckle Watch: The Mark of Zorro (1940)

Watched:  08/26/2021

Format:  TCM on DVR

Viewing:  First

Decade:  1940's

Director:  Rouben Mamoulian

I'm fully down with the idea of Zorro.  Back in the 1970's and 80's, the character was still relatively popular as our parents had come up on Zorro movies and the Disney television show.  We got a cartoon and Zorro the Gay Blade.  I did watch some reruns of the Disney show, and in 1990 I watched the first season or two of Zorro on the Family Channel.  And, I quite liked the two Antonio Banderas/ Catherine Zeta Jones films.

Somehow I'd never watched this movie.  Ironically, I once owed dozens of dollars in late fees on the movie when I rented it in college and lost it in my apartment (it somehow got kicked under the bed), but I never got to see it before I found and returned it.  So, here we are.  

Superman & Lois Season 1 - That Went Okay

Well, that went better than expected.  

If you watched, I invite you to jump into the comments.

It's hard to wrap up talking about an entire season of a television show, but I can say without reservation that it was considerably better than I figured we'd get.  I've done some due diligence - I watched *most* of Smallville, all of Supergirl to date, several seasons of The Flash, about 2.5 seasons of Legends of Tomorrow, and plenty of crossovers between the shows.   The CW DC shows are great to watch on the elliptical when there's a shortage of O2 headed to your skull, but none of it's working on the level of Watchmen or name-your-prestige-show.  

At this point, I've seen some remarkable comics adaptations on TV as well as the movies.  I'm still reeling from what Marvel has delivered on Disney+.

I didn't mind that DC and CW were afraid to take on a Superman show.  After all, Superman should be a movie-level property, even if Superman has traditionally employed serial and multi-episodic formats in radio, cartoons, television and more.   I mean, the Fleischers were so certain of this notion, they asked for a ridiculous budget to make Superman cartoons, and someone gave them that money.  And, 80 years later, those cartoons still look insanely good.  Superman: The Movie was massively expensive and, man, it's a singularly beautiful movie.  You can see how the character fell from grace as sequels worked with lower budgets, limping through Superman 4.  

But, as rocker David St. Hubbins observed:  It's such a fine line between stupid and clever.

PODCAST: Jurassic Park (1993) - a Signal Watch Canon Episode w/ Jamie and Ryan

Watched:  08/20/2021

Format:  HBOmax

Viewing:  Unknown

Decade:  1990's

Director:  Steven Spielberg

For more ways to listen

and 18 year old me also noticed the movie had lizards or something

We were so preoccupied with whether or not we could talk about the biggest movie of the 90's, we didn't stop to think if we should.

Jamie and Ryan take you on a (nsfw) podcast 28 years in the making! Join us as we splice together opinion, facts and memories to recall the gigantic beast of a movie that crashed down on an unsuspecting public and changed everything! We'll talk about how this movie was a moment of evolution for the film industry and entertainment, and how we (J & R) became fascinated with a movie about a day at the park not going super great. And, who makes khaki shorts work.

The Signal Watch PodCast · 158: "Jurassic Park" (1993) - A Signal Watch Canon Episode w/ Jamie and Ryan

Music:

Jurassic Park Theme Revised - Jamie M. "Goldenpipes" Steans

Theme from Jurassic Park - John Williams

Jurassic Park End Credits - John Williams

Jurassic Park Theme Revised - I'm not really sure

Signal Watch Canon

The Signal Watch PodCast · The Signal Watch Canon

Noir Re-Watch: The Big Heat (1953)

Watched:  08/22/2021

Format:  TCM on DVR

Viewing:  Unknown

Decade:  1950's

Director:  Fritz Lang

It's possible to say that The Big Heat (1953) is one of my favorite films.  I've seen it plenty, will watch parts of it when it pops up on TCM or wherever, and I think about parts of it a lot when considering other films.  I found it when I was discovering Gloria Grahame, and she's absolutely part of why I always come back to the movie.  She's so dang good in this movie as gangsters moll Debby Marsh - a plucky girl who has compromised a lot so she doesn't sink back into poverty.   To me, while she's very different from movies to movie, "excellent" is typical for the era from Grahame- but some consider this to be her final "great" performance.  Okay.  Fair enough.  She had some issues.  But what a way to leave a mark in cinema.

But I'm also fascinated by the story of the cop who spends his days and nights "white knighting" and not participating in the rampant corruption of his police department, only to lose his wife and... snap.  Like, Glenn Ford's Dave Bannion is not okay through a big part of the film.  It's an unusual fall from grace for a Hayes Era film, and while Bannion never quite breaks the Hayes Code, he sure seems like he might here and there.  

It's also got Lee Marvin in an early role, just filling up the screen and seeming like a whole lot more than the psycho second banana he's supposed to be, and playing it with a cool believability that his peers on screen aren't yet able to muster.

Anyway, I've written about this one before, and it's be a kick to podcast at some point.  So I'll duck out here.  But if you haven't seen it, give it a chance.  It feels remarkably modern for something 70 years old.