Tuesday, April 9, 2024

Noir Watch: The Damned Don't Cry (1950)




Watched:  04/08/2024
Format:  Criterion
Viewing:  First
Director:  Vincent Sherman
Selection:  Me

First:  The Damned Don't Cry (1950) is an amazing, pulpy-perfect name for a movie.  I am not sure more movies need to do this in this age, but The Dead Don't Hurt coming soon as a Western is a pretty dang solid name, too.  Marketers, challenge yourself when selling movies!  

Criterion Channel currently has a series going on featuring noir films made in 1950 entitled "Peak Noir", and I'm going to catch all of them I haven't seen.  Honestly, shoving Joan Crawford into a movie from this series was going to get me to prioritize it, so here we are. 

Crawford plays a mother to a young child, married to a roughneck and living with her parents in near poverty.  After the tragic death of her child on a bike they couldn't afford, she splits and heads for New York.  She moves swiftly into modelling for a dress-maker, and finds it has a side-hustle that's not quite prostitution, but adjacent.  Meeting a harmless CPA, she sees a way out, and gets him better gigs working for shady operations (and I think it's assumed, they're friendly).  However, this means she meets a 50's-style syndicate boss, and she trades up to become his kept woman.  

Monday, April 8, 2024

A Total Eclipse of the Sun..!

taken with my Pixel 4



Well, here in lovely Austin, Texas, we were on the edge of the total solar eclipse.  Around 1:36 PM Central, we experienced about 90 seconds of totality.

I was, honestly, pretty excited about the eclipse.  I've seen probably 4 partial eclipses, including one last summer.  And one lunar eclipse back in middle school when my family was on vacation in Mexico and a guy from a restaurant was standing there looking straight up, and because I am that guy, I looked straight up, and me and that guy stopped and enjoyed a lunar eclipse together.

Austin was a big destination for the eclipse, because we are a very hip town for reasons that escape me, but for weeks we've known it was going to be cloudy here.  A month ago, to get ahead of how crazy things would get, local and state government got involved and declared a "state of emergency" so they could handle the influx of people supposedly coming in.  I heard crazy stories about no way to get a flight in or out for days on either side of today.  But I live here, so I didn't really see anything different.

We're expecting usual Austin-Springtime horrible weather over the next 24 hours or so, and so there was a chance we'd all be standing out looking up at the sun getting hit with hail.  

But that didn't happen.  

The weather sort of held on, delivered some swiftly moving cloud cover that allowed for occasional breaks and thinning of the clouds, so we could see El Sol.  Jamie and I were able to head out to the field and retention pond area in our neighborhood where folks brought camp chairs and blankets.  

I also brought a box of Moon Pies and distributed them to folks who wanted one.





Folks were kind of quietly excited, and I realized, thanks to my daily viewing of KXAN news and the breathless reporting they'd been doing on the eclipse for what had to have been six weeks in advance, I was quite the know-it-all about the cosmic event.  

Do bats come out for an eclipse?  NO.  It turns out that they work on an internal clock and are not paying attention to the sun.

I tried to take pictures to show the difference in how very dark it did get, but my camera auto-corrected, and you can't see the change.

I've been fighting allergies, so sitting outside was a bit concerning, but given this was a possibly-once-in-a-lifetime event, I girded my loins, and - giving Jamie a headstart to go chat with neighbors, eventually I headed out.

Honestly, it was an amazing event.  Writing it down is a little meaningless.  You've probably seen plenty of pictures or video.  And I'd argue being there with other people to witness the same thing is part of it.  For the people who were at big civic events, etc... I get it.

As the moon got into position, the sky absolutely got darker and the temperature dropped several degrees.  I wouldn't say the birds went completely quiet, but they certainly toned it down.  During totality, a small bird, maybe a finch? flew weirdly close to us, I would guess a bit confused and looking for cover.  I'd argue I noticed when the birds came back to making noise again a lot more than when it went away, which might have been gradual.

Likely because we were so close to the edge of the event, and because clouds would disperse light, we didn't experience the same total darkness I saw in Indianapolis or other locations on the same path.  I'd say it got as dark as twilight during summer when the light hangs on a long time and you can still see a bit down the street.  But the change was *fast*.  I was pulling my cardboard glasses on and off to look around, and every time I did, it was noticeably darker in the minutes leading up to the grand event.

My neighbor, Michelle, and I were pondering "oh, yes, you can see exactly why ancient cultures lost their minds about this" and I need to look into what another neighbor was describing about the ancient mounds built by the First People on North America, because I was vaguely aware of them for ceremonial purposes, but not their astronomic/ astrological significance.  

As the news had said, the totality was brief, maybe 90 seconds.  You can get a rough idea of what the corona or ring looked like in my pics.  



And, of course, these pics do it no justice.  It was genuinely beautiful and unlike even the partial eclipses I'd seen before.  And, due in part to the totality and the clouds, if you weren't just staring, you could look at it with the naked eye.

The sliver of light left just before totality is kind of lovely and almost sad, and then... the ring.  In our case it was white light shining through the clouds, just shimmering around the perfect circle of the moon.  Then, when the event is passing, you get the diamond on the ring as the first real rays of the sun break out at the edge and a spot of light formed on, to my eye, the lower left angle.  And it's really kind of lovely.

Did I eat a Moon Pie during totality?  Friends, you know I did, and it was perfect.

I don't know that I'm ready to chase eclipses around the planet, but it was something that will be locked up in my mind's eye, ready to remember.  Glad I saw it with Jamie and our neighbors.  

G Watch: Godzilla vs. Gigan (1972)





Watched:  04/07/2024
Format:  Max
Viewing:  Second
Director:  Jun Fukuda

I wasn't feeling great thanks to springtime allergies, and decided a rewatch of Godzilla vs. Gigan (1972) was in order.  

My memory of the movie was mostly bi-furcated between the Children's Land storyline and maybe 1/3rd of the movie being some really pretty good kaiju fighting (as these things go).  And that turned out to be correct.  

For folks who are somehow shocked that the current Godzilla x Kong: The New Empire film is not a gritty, "realistic", edgy take on Godzilla - y'all need to sit down.  There were multiple eras of Godzilla, and within each of those eras - quite a few of the movies were for kids.  And I think you can see the spirit of the more kid-friendly movies at their best with this one.  

It's another alien invasion-via space-kaiju film, but also the promise of how cool it would be to build a Godzilla tower as the focal point of an amusement park.  I mean - we kinda really should have this, and I'm mad I can't stay in a hotel in Godzilla's belly and eat dinner in his head.  

The heroes are young hipsters, one of which is for no reason a karate-wielding bad-ass, and then a manga artist, a hippie and... girl?  Anyway, in the same era Hanna-Barbera was making shows about Youths having kooky adventures, so too was Toho.  

The villains are eventually revealed to be intelligent cockroaches, which is hilarious and gross.  

Anyway, the battles in this are really complex and really long, and that's not a complaint.  You paid to see Godzilla and Anguirus get in a scrape, and they sure do.  We're in the period, as well, where Godzilla was now a "protector" of the Earth, rather than an unknowable force that just rampaged from time to time.  This "protector" idea was picked up immediately by Monsterverse and was more or less their whole deal, which I didn't particularly love as an intro to Godzilla.  

The odd thing about the movie is that there *is* monster blood, which tells you that Toho was still seeing what they could and couldn't do, and what looked weird and changed the tone of the fights.  Overall, there's some fun stuff in the fights, because Gigan is a pretty creative kaiju with a great look.  

Anyway, not going to oversell it, but I think if you want a Showa-era movie, you could do worse.  

Sunday, April 7, 2024

Neo-Noir Watch: Femme Fatale (2002)




Watched:  04/07/2024
Format:  DVD
Viewing:  First
Director:  DePalma

A while back I was watching some DePalma movies, and enjoying them, and made a mental note to watch Femme Fatale (2002) sometime.  And, then, whilst watching Star Trek: Strange New Worlds, which stars one Rebecca Romijn as Lt. Commander Una Chin-Riley, I was once again reminded to watch the film, and bought it on DVD via eBay for, like, $4.  

And then promptly forgot to watch it.  

Well, no more!  I have now finally seen Femme Fatale, and...  this is a tough one to discuss.  

DePalma is a curious film maker.  I genuinely like some of his work, and, at minimum, find stuff like Body Double at least worth a watch.  He's like a film studies book come to life, but he also isn't afraid of every day adult things like "people get naked" and "have sex" and gets those are pretty major motivations for people, and so can be for characters.* But he's also usually telling a thriller/ neo-noir crime story (see: Dressed to Kill or Blow Out) and so there's something to hang that on.  

Femme Fatale plays all of DePalma's greatest hits.  It has the most breathtakingly bizarre use of the concept of "doubles", it absolutely makes our kinda hero (Antonio Banderas) a voyeur, it goofs on identity, fate and concept of a femme fatale.  Heck, it opens on Romijn watching Double Indemnity.

Romijn was still a bit green when she took on the role, and I note that she was nominated for an off-brand Raspberry type award for this, but if the past few years have taught me anything, it's that those awards tend to age badly and generally show more about the awards' intolerance for anything not fitting into neat categories of that year or talent stretching beyond what the committee *thinks* they should be doing for a living (Romijn had been a model - which will shock no one watching this movie).  

I think Romijn is actually *pretty good* in this.  The character is a bit of a cypher, by necessity, and when the woman behind the face pokes her head out, it's interesting and buyable.  She's not as good as she's been on Star Trek, but - again - early days, and dealing with some material that works as an academic exercise as much or more than a coherent film.

SPOILERS

Saturday, April 6, 2024

Noir Watch: No Way Out (1950)




Watched:  04/06/2024
Format:  Criterion
Viewing:  First
Director:  Joseph L. Mankiewicz

If you want to see a young actor show up with a ton of star power - and this was Sidney Poitier's real screen debut - seeing him in this film is extraordinary.  Heck, in most ways, this film is extraordinary.  

I thought No Way Out (1950) was a simpler film, but confess I didn't know anything about the plot or set-up.  Just that it starred young Poitier, the always great Richard Widmark and Linda Darnell, who is always a good reason to watch a film.  

Poitier plays a doctor just done with school on his first day as an official doctor.  He's sent to treat two criminals caught during a robbery, shot and in need of care.  One of them is displaying bizarre symptoms and while Poitier is looking into what ails him via a spinal tap, one of the crooks dies.  His horrendously racist brother (Widmark) is convinced Poitier killed him on purpose.  

While the hospital backs Poitier, Poitier still wants an autopsy, and so they go to the dead man's wife (Darnell) to get her to convince the brother that an autopsy should be performed.  Widmark convinces her that the hospital is looking to cover up the evidence of foul play, which she conveys to the residents of Beaver Canal, which is where the poorest (and apparently most racist) folks in their city live.  

Soon, a race riot breaks out, but rather than have it happen in their neighborhood, the Black men head to Beaver Canal.  Things get violent.

There's a wide array of characters in the film, from the progressive chief doctor supporting Poitier to the pragmatic hospital director to the elevator operator who sees Poitier as stepping outside of his place to the domestic who knows more than she says.  And, of course, Poitier's family, with a negative nelly of a matriarch.  It's a great way of showing some of the complexity everyone is dealing with, and even the purest of intentions gets mangled by agendas and scars (some literal).  

Friday, April 5, 2024

Bette Davis Birthday



Bette Davis, one of the greatest stars of cinema, was born on April 5, 1908.  

If you haven't seen many Bette Davis movies, fix that.  She's terrific in everything.

Wednesday, April 3, 2024

Noir Watch: Pushover (1954)




Watched:  04/03/2024
Format:  TCM Noir Alley
Viewing:  Second
Director:  Richard Quine
Selection:  Myself via Noir Alley

I vaguely recalled watching this movie several years ago, and liking it well enough.  And, sure enough, in 2011, I'd seen it during one of my noir sprints.   

The post linked above is good enough at providing a synopsis.  I would argue my appreciation for the film is probably greater at this point than in 2011.  On that first viewing I was a bit dismissive about the stakes and the scope being too small of a plot for a movie in modern terms, comparing it to a single episode of a cop show, but i feel like And that may be somewhat true:  I don't think this would be greenlit - or at least the execution would now be greatly reimagined.  But I'd walk that back to:  this is a full arc for a prestige TV show. 

What I don't think, now, is that I quite grasped exactly how noir this movie is, how much one could use it on an exam to say "now, in what ways is Novak's character a femme fatale?" and "what mistakes did Fred MacMurray's character make and why did he make them?"  The movie is like a punchlist of what makes noir, noir - right down to the contrasting story with Dorothy Malone as the bubbly nurse living nextdoor to Novak and the "good" cop slowly falling for her.

There's the obvious 50's film favorite issue of voyeurism, which I mostly previously discussed in the framework of "oh, hey, Vertigo also came out around the same time."  While it's impossible not to think of Hitch's film, this movie seems less aware of the perverse thrill of people-watching, and treats it in a "boys will be boys" way as our cops enjoy their stakeout ogling women, which only really serves as subtext and draws commentary as discussion external to the film.  

The movie is also not just beautifully shot, but I think you need to be impressed by the editing.  A good chunk of the film takes place in and around a single apartment building, in and out of doors - almost to the point of absurdity - and it's never a question for the audience who is where and what they're doing. There's some modern version of this with cameras and a split screen tracking everyone.  

I also didn't say much about Novak in the original post, but it is her first film, and she's an astounding natural talent.  She's very young here - something like 20, and she already has polish of a seasoned actor (which may be Quine's direction).  Her character is going through a lot, and I think only once did I think "is that the right reading of that line?" but it was the one that wound up in the film on purpose.  But, yeah, amazing work from Novak who is both the center and kind of heart of the film.

Anyway, I don't know that this movie will change your life, but it's better than I gave it credit for on the first viewing.  





Tuesday, April 2, 2024

Joe Flaherty Merges With The Infinite



According to multiple sources, actor and comedian Joe Flaherty has passed.  

Flaherty retired about a decade ago, but still lived large in the public consciousness of GenX and probably on either side of that media-consuming era.  

I knew Joe originally from SCTV episodes, and basically stole his Count Floyd bit to entertain Jamie as Count Dracula Jr.  Flaherty was fortunate or unfortunate enough to be surrounded by some of the comedy giants of his generation - so you both have a bar set that's extraordinarily high and you're one of the SCTV bunch rather than just Joe Flaherty.  But he did work *constantly* until his retirement in 2012-ish.  

He was always good, and quite often *great*, and I'll miss knowing he was out there.


Fritz Lang Watch: M (1931)




Watched:  04/01/2024
Format:  Criterion
Viewing:  First
Director:  Fritz Lang
Selection:  Me


I've been meaning to get to this one for at least fifteen years.  Maybe much longer.  And if I can keep my act together, I'll watch another Fritz Lang movie soon, Ministry of Fear.  

But M (1931) was priority as it's on a lot of "best movies ever" lists, and cited by academics as wildly important and influential - and I'd argue - as this is 1931 - so influential it's imprinted itself onto mass media to such a degree that tracing it back would be quite the cladogram.  

Also, it turns out: the universally praised movie is, in fact, shockingly good.

Essentially what delayed my viewing of the film was what I assumed the movie would be about, and any enjoyment would be largely academic.  And the movie is about the things I suspected, in part.  But stunned was I when the movie took a hard pivot and became about something far more nuanced and difficult to wrangle.

Here's what I knew:  M stars Peter Lorre in his breakout role.  In 1931 Berlin, someone is murdering children.  A frantic manhunt begins.

Those things are correct.  

SPOILERS

Monday, April 1, 2024

Doc Watch: Steve! (Martin) A Documentary in 2 Pieces (2024)




Watched:  03/30/2024
Format:  Apple+
Viewing:  First
Director:  Morgan Neville
Selection:  Jamie


I remember back in high school going to see L.A. Story, written by and starring Steve Martin, and getting that Steve Martin was going through some sort of sea-change in what he wanted to be in as an actor.  I'd always known him as a movie star, but certainly associated him with silly/ smart movies like The Jerk, but I'd also seen Roxanne and got that maybe he was doing something with his career now that was less goofy (but, arguably, pretty smart) than Three Amigos.  

And then I think it was around the release of Novocaine that I heard him on the radio (NPR) and got the idea that, oh...  Steve Martin is a weirdly smart guy.  And he's smart in that way that I think he probably just doesn't really connect well to a lot of people - which is the thesis of the doc, one supposes.

If you generally like Steve Martin, I think this is a good way to spend some time.  I'm not overly interested in the personal lives of most modern entertainers, and this is definitely a curated peek into Martin's life, including interviews with friends and his current wife.  It's a collection of showbiz personalities - and you get the feeling Tina Fey really was holding herself back - and then artists, poets and others in Martins orbit who do seem to be his actual friends.  Which is, frankly, unusual for one of these types of docs.