It's Summer Film Series Time

It is true that in about a month we're going on hiatus from blogging.  But that doesn't mean we're heading into cryogenic storage for the summer (although, given the spiking temps here this week, that might be preferable).

Of course, there's one little picture coming out which might have us a bit distracted.

this movie also features bonus reasons for viewing

Paramount Summer Schedule

I spent the morning going over the Paramount Summer Film Series schedule, and it's really terrific.  I'm kind of bummed that I'm out of town for work for many good films, but that's the way the cookie crumbles.

If you're in Austin, we can't recommend enough the Paramount Summer Series as a great way to beat the heat.  Really, the Paramount, the Alamo Ritz and Barton Springs are the Holy Trifecta of avoiding boredom and sweat during the long summer months for me here in Austin.

The Paramount Summer Film Series schedule

If you're in Austin, and you want to join me for a movie, check out our calendar up there in the horizontal menu bar.  

Our calendar

Stanwyck is incognito in Double Indemnity

I'm very excited that the new programmer has included a series throughout the summer called Film Noir 101.  While it's mostly showing movies I've seen more than once, it's a start, and fills a gap that's been in the summer line-up the past few years.  

Oddly, there's no sci-fi line-up, and I expect there'll be a remedy to that next year when the stalwarts complain.

Forbidden Planet - May 25th at Noon at The Ritz

It's no lie that I love the 1956 film Forbidden Planet.

Incredible FX, a weirdo story based on Shakespeare's The Tempest, a killer soundtrack and Robbie the Robot?  That's not even mentioning Leslie Nielsen in a straight role as a proto-Captain Kirk.

If you're in Austin, I'm going to try to be down at the Ritz at 12:00 noon to catch this thing.  A great, otherworldy sci-fi classic!

Here for details

And, btw, this poster hangs in my stairwell, so I look at this image each and every time I come down the stairs.

Klaatu Barada Nikto! Paramount Austin Sci-Fi Week is Coming

Hey, Austinites!

It's about to be Sci-Fi Week at Austin's own Paramount Theater, August 14-19!

There's a great bunch of films coming, and I am up for any and/ or all of them.

Let me know if any of this looks like fun, and we can join up downtown.

"Gort.  You stay here and watch the car."

• Day the Earth Stood Still
• Forbidden Planet
• Metropolis
• The Beast from 20,000 Fathoms
• Planet of the Apes
• Invasion of the Body Snatchers
• The Terminator
• A Clockwork Orange

A lot of these movies are showing three days, so we have lots of options.

in case you couldn't guess, I'm pretty keen on seeing "Beast from 20,000 Fathoms".  And hearing Jamie surely describe the monster as "really cute!".

Signal Watch Cinema Series is GO!!!

If you live in Austin (and many of you do), then you may want to check out our "calendar" section all summer long.  Come June, Austin ramps up the offerings to us locals at The Paramount, The Alamo and elsewhere.

our own Paramount Theater

Just click on calendar in the horizontal tabs, and see what we're thinking of doing.    We'll try to keep the calendar updated all summer long as movies come out and life and whatnot gets in the way.  I'd guess we're going to be changing the line-up every two or three weeks, so keep your eyes on the schedule.

there you go, Jason.  Right there.

It's in Google Calendar, so you should be able to add our events to your own calendar with the push of a button.

If you want to join us for anything, make sure we can actually make it by contacting us first.  Email, texts, phonecalls, twitter, facebook and singing telegrams are all perfectly reasonable ways of reaching out to us.

We're also planning a trip down to San Antonio this summer to see a movie or two (most likely Gilda), so join us in The River City.

It's a hell of a line up this summer, and I am pretty excited.  Bond Week.  Sci-Fi Week.  Horror Week.  Noir.  Samurai.  It's going to be all right.

my second home away from home in the summer

Fantastic Voyage (to Denton, TX and the movies)

Wednesday I head to Denton, TX for a 2 day conference on...  you know what?  I'm pretty sure you don't care.  But, yeah, 48 hours in Denton with Librarians and Degree Evaluators.  Should be a hoot.

Anyhoo, on Saturday I'm hoping to join SimonUK at the Alamo South Lamar for a screening of one of my favorites from middle school, shown to us in Life Sciences in 7th grade in order to demonstrate exactly where we might need to know this stuff.

Fantastic Voyage is the original "we've shrunk them down to microscopic size and injected them in a submarine into someone's bloodstream to save this important person's life" story, which is way less specific than you'd think.  Its been ripped off on numerous occasions.

But the first is still the best.

World's least efficient way of keeping your cholesterol under control

Doesn't that look exciting?  13 year old me certainly thought it was amazingly exciting.  I think 36 year old me still sees the appeal.

The movie starts at 11:00, but as Kid's Club at South Lamar is free, be there early as 10:00.  Have some coffee with me and Simon.  We're good company.

And if you need further incentive:  Raquel Welch wears a white "scuba suit" for a good chunk of the movie.

You can microscopically swim around in my bloodstream anytime

You can never have enough scuba-suited, laser-toting Raquel Welch for my dollar.

Come out and join us!  Wear your Slim Goodbody costume so we can map the progress of our crew!

Reminder: "War of the Worlds" (1953) showing at Alamo South on Saturday

SimonUK reminded me today - the Alamo Kids Club is showing the 1953 version of War of the Worlds at Alamo South on Lamar on Saturday.

You can see info here.

The showtime is 11:45, but I'll be there a full hour early.  Why?  The show is free!  And that means lots of folks come early to ensure they get a seat.

If you've never seen the 1953 War of the Worlds, its an incredible movie.  I like it enough that my b-day present to myself this year was a scale model of one of the Martian ships.

they are here to chew bubble gum and heat blast earthlings.  And they're all outta bubblegum.

I confess, I find a bit weird to show this to small kids as I remember it spooking me a bit even when I saw it in 6th grade (I was not raised on horror movies and was a sensitive child, I guess).  But the effects are fan-freaking-tastic, and the aliens are not kidding around with their plans to heat-beam us all into smithereens.

I hope to see you there!

Join Us for the Seminal Films of My Youth: Buckaroo Banzai and Commando!

You are either with us or against us tomorrow evening at the double-bill screening of Them! and Godzilla (I recommend "with". We have mutant ants and a 30 story-high radiation-breathing lizard on our team.).

But if you can't make that:


The Adventures of Buckaroo Banzai Across the Eighth Dimension
July 17th at 7pm at The Alamo Ritz

If you've never seen Buckaroo Banzai, I pity you. Peter Weller plays the titular physicist/adventurer/rockstar, and the cast includes a very young (and attractive as always)Ellen Barkin, Jeff Goldblum, John Lithgow, Christopher Lloyd, and even Clancy "Lex Luthor" Brown.

To explain the movie is like trying to explain the 8th Dimension its very self.  But, its sort of a 1980's tongue-in-cheek take on old school Sci-Fi ideas like Doc Savage and his team of adventurers.  Also: trans-dimensional aliens, rockbands, and jet-propelled mini-vans.  Its...  an amazing bit of movie-making that utterly flopped at the box office (although I saw it in the theater, natch), and has become a cult favorite of nerds everywhere.

Commando
July 21st at 7pm at The Alamo Ritz

To me, this is the quintessential modern action film.  I don't love this movie because it is good, or even for nostalgic reasons.  I love this movie because it is absolutely pure and sincere in what it is (sincerely ridiculous), and you can pretty much demonstrably prove that every action movie that came before or after this movie somehow touches this movie as either leading to Commando or as a descendant of Commando (or, the era that produced Commando.  And, of course, this is the ultimate movie of that era). 

I literally talk about Commando at least once per week.  Partially because EVERYBODY HAS SEEN COMMANDO.  This is a rule.  Everyone has seriously seen this movie.  Want to talk about the dull characterization popular in action films?  Commando.  Want to talk heroes who do more damage than good by anybody's measure?  Commando.  Want to talk about stripping down to your skivvies for no reason other than that you've hired Mr. Universe for your action picture?  COMMANDO.

COMMANDO!

Plus, they're gonna set off fireworks in the theater.

Reminder: July 5th Double Bill: Godzilla (1954) and Them!

CHANGE OF PLANS: We are now attending the July 6th screening of both movies with Them! playing first, and then Godzilla

I haz crash ur party?

People, I am no Godzilla aficionado (and yes, they exist), but I am a fan of the Godzilla movies I have seen, including the 1954 original. I am also a fan of the 1954 entomologists' dream, Them!.  Why, if you're a fan of @#$% that can go wrong with wildlife during a nuclear test, this is absolutely the double-feature you've been waiting for.

Fortunately for us Austinites, this year's Paramount schedule features a double bill of both movies on the same night, and I am going to either do both of Tuesday or one each on Tuesday and Wednesday.  If you want to join us, send me an email or text me or whatever.

worst.  picnic.  ever.

Here's the Paramount schedule.

Noir Watch: "Touch of Evil" at Paramount w/ @PlacesLost was a good/ horrible time

Man, Touch of Evil is a complicated movie.  Charlton Heston is supposedly a Mexican narco agent, Orson Welles acts and directs and looks like he's about to keel over in every shot, Marlene Dietrich shows up as a tired fortune teller/ good-time girl and looks pretty damn good, Janet Leigh gets menaced, and for some reason Zsa Zsa Gabor is in the movie for about twenty seconds.

In this film Heston plays what he does best:  Charlton Heston.  But with a mustache.

I watched Touch of Evil for the first time around 1998 or 1999, likely on VHS from "I Love Video" on Airport, and what I really recall is that I found the scene in which Janet Leigh is menaced alone in her motel room so upsetting, I turned the movie off and went and did other things for a bit and came back to finish the movie later.  I suppose as I'd seen the movie before, I knew what was coming and it was a bit easier to manage as a viewer, but its still some fairly powerful stuff.

Cinema Corps: Wednesday - "Touch of Evil" at The Paramount

On Wednesday June 1 at 7:00, catch a noir classic with Charlton Heston (hey!  More Cheston for me and Si!) and Orson Welles in Touch of Evil.  You can stay around, and on the same ticket, watch Welles' F for Fake, the movie I've never been able to watch to the end.  Srsly.  I can't deal with it.

True Story:  Touch of Evil is so frikkin' creepy, I literally turned it off the first time I watched it, went away for an hour and then came back to it.

Also, it stars Charlton Heston as a Mexican guy, because, apparently, there were no Mexican or Hispanic actors in 1958.  That is a scientific fact.*

But it is a good movie!  A really good movie.  So, join us!

*or some mid-range racism.  Slow clap, Hollywood.

NathanC takes it to TV to promote classic film in San Antonio

Let me be clear: I am totally jealous of Nathan's gig as one of the voices of film in San Antonio, Texas. He's been working with the Bijou Theater and using his voice as part of San Antonio's public radio network to bring all kinds of films to The Alamo City for over a decade.

Here's Nathan appearing on local TV to promote the start of the TPR summer cinema series.



I'm heading down there for a picture or two, but I need to square with Jamie and figure out what we're going to go see.  I think Nathan represents my sole San Antonio reader, but if you want to go down there, lemme know.

I have to apologize to Nathan, because his choice to run my review of Santa Buddies may have tarnished his relationship with the Walt Disney Company.  One hopes that hasn't slowed him down too much.

Reminder: Sunday 7:00 PM - "Big Trouble in Little China" at the Alamo Ritz

What better way to get a jump on Valentine's Day than to take your sweetie-pie out for an evening of thrills, chills, and romance? John Carpenter's seminal 1980's masterpiece, Big Trouble in Little China is mostly forgotten by people who don't like things which are awesome. However, those of us who do like things which are awesome will be at the Alamo Ritz on Sunday evening for a screening of one of the best flicks Hollywood ever produced.

Join us at The Alamo at 7:00! Jason, Jamie, AmyD and SimonUK will all be there!

SimonUK sends along this music video featuring the end credits theme song to the movie. Yes, Carpenter likes to do his own music for his own movies. Your mileage will vary.

Catching up on Sunday and Monday

Sorry for the lack of posting on Sunday or Monday.

Sunday we watched the Super Bowl and ate until we threw up. No, I was not enamored with any particular Super Bowl ads, and, no... I don't like the Black Eyed Peas in general, or Christina Aguilera, so I see no reason to bag on them in particular now when enough people like them that they got hired to do the Super Bowl (even if both performances were sort of disastrous).

As per the actual game, I used to be a big Green Bay fan, but slacked off my viewing the past... 8 years or so. So, yes, I cheered for them and was pleased they won.

On Monday night, Jamie and I went to a screening of Close Encounters of the Third Kind, a seminal movie for sci-fi nerds, film score dorks, Dreyfus goons and Devil's Tower and mashed potato enthusiasts.

srsly, geology?

The screening was part of a "Film Score Focus" series, hosted by the guy who runs a radio show here on our local classical station, KMFA.  The program is dedicated to understanding film music. As my film score knowledge extends only to about six composers (one of whom may or may not be Prince), and I'm usually pre-occupied on Sundays, I rarely hear the show, but its a good time when I do tune in.

If you've never seen Close Encounters of the Third Kind, its Spielberg's wish-fulfillment movie about an unlikely way to get out of a dead-end marriage without involving Kate Capshaw. Wait, that is not what its about at all.*

Its about "Ohmigodlook. UFOs!"

The movie has a killer score and is just a lovely, optimistic film that makes you wonder: What happened between this and Hook, Steven?  I do think the movie might be a smidge dated at this point in structure, audio design, etc...  but that's okay.  The story itself is compelling enough and detailed enough that its still a good watch.

So, anyway. No real review. No real post.  Thanks to SimonUK for coming out for the show!

*Because the most fantastical idea is that Teri Garr circa 1977 would be someone I'd want to escape.

Signal Watch Events - January/ February 2011

Signal Watch Events is a standard service to alert Signal Corps members of movies, concerts, sporting events that we are considering attending.  You can also check the Signal Watch calendar (see the tab above) or click on this link.

If you plan to attend an event or would like to suggest an event, please contact us and let us know! 

Please note:  While we have the best of intentions, we don't actually make it to all events. We would like to put our best foot forward, so if you plan to join us, please email us so we can discuss.

Also, we're usually up for dinner or something coordinated with an event, so just ask.

• January 13 at 7:00 - Out of the Past at The Paramount Theater
• January 14 at 7:00ish or something - Girl Talk at the Austin Music Hall
• January 16 at 2:00 - Out of the Past at The Paramount Theater
• January 16 at 4:00 - Laura at The Paramount Theater
• January 16 at 7:00 PM - Alamo Cinema Club:  Some Came Running hosted by Richard Linklater at Alamo Downtown (a 3 movie marathon seems like a bit much, so the outlook on this isn't great)
• January 19 at 10:00 PM - Tough Guy Cinema presents:  Robocop at Alamo Downtown
• January 22 at 7:00 PM - Abbot and Costello Meet Frankentsein at The Paramount Theater
• January 22 at 9:00 PM - Frankenstein at The Paramount Theater
• January 28 at 11:55 PM - The Room at Alamo Village
• January 30 at 6:00 PM - Texas Rollerderby at the Palmer Events Center
• February 13 at 7:00 PM (alternate times considered) - Zzang!! presents Big Trouble in Little China at Alamo Downtown (you are pissing me off to no end!)
• February 20 at 7:00 PM - Alamo Cinema Club presents Bigger than Life at Alamo Downtown

Noir Week at the Cinema Club

To the Signal Corps operating in the Austin, Texas District of Texas Sector...

Let me know if you're interested in joining up for any of the following:

Sunday 7/11: Alamo Cinema Club at the Ritz: The Prowler

Some classic film noir with a special mini-lecture by film noir expert Eddie Muller.

Monday 7/12: Alamo Cinema Club at the Ritz: Cry Danger

See above. Different movie, same guest presenter.

Tuesday 7/13: Sunset Boulevard at the Paramount

I finally watched this one in its entirety this year, and it more than earned its reputation. Totally brilliant.

Light Blogging Ahead: Searchers/ Strange Brew

Scheduled to go see "The Searchers" Tuesday night at 7:00 and might do "Shane" afterward. Thursday I'm headed to The Alamo on South Lamar to go see "Strange Brew". That's right. You heard me.


take off, you hosers

So, anyway, you're welcome to join me at any of the above if you're around.

But I don't want to hear any noise about a lack of posting.

Cinema Series: So... Giant is next weekend...

I am bad at stuff.

I went solo to go see "Giant" today at the Paramount, a film I've been looking forward to since the release of the schedule. I had my Diet Coke in hand, a small popcorn, a box of Milkduds, and a great seat in the balcony. Anyone could see I was ready for an epic Western to unspool before me.

Anyhow, the movie began with a car driving down a road and titles informing me this was Beirut, sometime on November. So, for a full minute, I had the bizarre experience of having absolutely no idea what movie I was watching, but I'd paid $5 to see it.

Turns out, "Giant" is showing next weekend. "Black Sunday" was showing today. Good movie, it turns out. Frankenheimer at his Frankenheimeriest.

The lesson we can all learn here? Don't let Bruce Dern pilot a blimp. Which I sort of knew, already.

So, I am trying to figure out, what with Father's Day next weekend, if I can pull off going to see "Giant."

At the Paramount: Giant, Taking of Pelham 1-2-3

I am likely flying solo to see "Giant" tomorrow (Sunday) at the Paramount at 2:00. So if anyone is looking for a hot date with yours truly, let me know.

On Monday, we're joining SimonUK (aka: The Si) to see "The Taking of Pelham 1-2-3". This is the original, not the recent remake with Travolta and Denzel Washington.

So, Austinites, join us at The Paramount for stuff that is not "The A-Team".

Birdemic Returns to the Alamo!!!! - Cinema Series?

Austinites have two more opportunities to see Birdemic on the big screen (where it truly belongs!). The film is coming back to The Alamo!

June 16 at 10:30 pm
July 7 at 7:00 pm

Signal Corps, I am proposing a July 7, 7:00 pm screening.



You now have a full month to prepare yourself (if one can truly prepare) for BIRDEMIC!!!! Bring a coathanger, a check for one million dollars and a gun.

Cinema Series: GIANT at the Paramount

come back to the Five and Dime, Jimmy Dean, Jimmy Dean.

I have never seen the classic film "Giant", but if I'm going to watch it, what say you join me on Sunday, June 20th for four hours of epic Texas awesomeness? And a young Elizabeth Taylor, when that was a good idea.

Giant is showing at the Paramount Theatre on June 20th at 2:00 PM. Be there, or be square.