Today I am 42

Sycamore Trees

by David Lynch, Angelo Badalamenti and Little Jimmy Scott

I got idea man
You take me for a walk
Under the sycamore trees
The dark trees that blow baby
In the dark trees that blow

And I'll see you
And you'll see me
And I'll see you in the branches that blow
In the breeze,
I'll see you in the trees
Under the sycamore trees

That "Thor: Ragnarok" trailer is pretty cool

Look, I go and see every single Marvel Studios movie in the theater.  I just dig what they're up to, in general.  Point being - there was never any question whether or not they were getting my $12 for a ticket.

Things I knew before the trailer came out:

• Thor would get a haircut
• Jeff Goldblum would play a major part
• the movie would have the Hulk in it somewhere

That's about it.  Nobody told me it ALSO had Cate Blanchett.

I don't know how many of you saw Ghostbusters (2016), but one thing that was absolutely true was that Chris Hemsworth absolutely held his own with four of the funniest people working in TV and film, and, in fact, got the biggest laugh of the film from me.  So letting him do more of that here - that's welcome.

Thor was never my favorite comics character - and I've tried.  But I have enjoyed the Marvel Studios version a great deal and pretty much everything about the movies, even though they're generally considered less than the best in the Marvel Cinematic Universe.  Sure, the second one is most forgettable, but it does have some good stuff in it, but I couldn't tell you the plot now if I tried.

Anyway, this looks fun, right?  High stakes.  Big, big story.  Guest stars.  Cate Blanchett.

This could be more than okay.

Arnie Watch: We went COMMANDO! (1985)

Thursday night we had nothing queued on the DVR, the Cubs weren't playing and I was pondering what we might put on the tube when Jamie said "Why don't we watch Commando?"

I immediately ran over and began trying to remove the Jamie-disguise from whomever was pretending to be my wife, but eventually it was revealed that, no, it was her, and she didn't care what we watched.  She had seen my recently purchased Commando BluRay collecting dust on the shelf for months, earnestly waiting a viewing, and - as she loves me, some times she takes pity on me.

Now, if you know me, you know of my ironic/ totally not-at-all ironic love for Commando (1985), an early-ish Arnie picture that was part of what catapulted him to superstar status that would reach peak popularity around 1992.

In the harsh light of reviewing this movie in 2017, the movie probably seems positively camp.  While it certainly has some gags and Arnie-isms, it was never intended as a yuck fest - but Arnie was part of a wave of a certain kind of action movie that wasn't afraid of a sense of humor.  And I can easily watch it as a straight action movie of workmanlike success, just as I can enjoy the movie for the truly bizarre specimen and reflection of a certain mentality in mid-80's actioners that it is.  OR I can enjoy it as the Platonic Ideal of 80's Action Movies/ Movies in General.

Don Rickles Has Merged With the Infinite

What can you say?  Don Rickles was one of the five funniest people I can think of, and he was a pro and working right up til recent years, still himself and sharp as hell the last time I saw him on video.

Some people's comedy doesn't age well - I'm not sure how a lot of comedians from the first thirty years of TV would play today.  But Rickles was always in a class of his own, decade after decade, and no one could do what he did and still be beloved by multiple generations.  I think we all knew - that wicked tongue?  It was the act.  You never saw people who actually knew Rickles say a word against him, and if you doubt that, please do watch the doc, Mr. Warmth.

I mean, I can think of few things that would have filled me with more joy in this life than had the man ever called me a hockey puck.

Here's the NY Times obit.

He's truly going to be missed, and I hope all the media coverage he gets tells the younger kids he was more than a Mr. Potato - although that was sort of perfect, too.

Happy 80th Birthday to Billy Dee Williams

Happy 80th Birthday to the guy who gave me very specific ideas of what a cool guy was supposed to be like when I was about 5.

Mom never did let me wear that cape.

Just noticed - Finn has Lando's blaster in The Force Awakens.

Noir Watch: The Blue Gardenia (1953)

I'm not entirely certain what to make of The Blue Gardenia (1953), and possibly talking about it right after watching it is a mistake.  It was this week's pick on TCM's "Noir Alley", introduced by the great Eddie Muller.

My current take on the film is that I like a huge amount of the pieces that made up the movie, but wasn't a raging fan of the movie itself.  I mean, it stars Richard Conte, Raymond Burr and Anne Baxter (who does some kind of edgy stuff for 1953 - but that's noir all over).  It's got a scenario as treacherous as many or most in noir, pulling the world down a normal person's ears because she made a bad decision or two.  And it's one of the more straightforward "no means no" messages you're going to see in a movie, but baked into the social standards of the era - which makes it all the more challenging.

And did I mention Fritz Lang is the director?  And Nicholas Musuraca (Out of the Past) was DP?

AND it had George Reeves in a supporting role as a wiseguy of a cop?

Yeah, I don't quite get why the movie felt a little flat.

Happy Birthday, Bette Davis

Today would have been the 109th birthday of Bette Davis

Ghost Watch: Ghostbusters (2016)

So, I re-watched the 2016 Ghostbusters because Jamie said "I really want to rewatch the new Ghostbusters".  So, we did.

I still liked it okay.  It's not the original, and struggles when they have to stop goofing around and get through the actual plot.

Some of the issues on a rewatch and having had seen the original approximately 13,000 times is the mental mapping you start doing to the original as the movie is a "remake" of sorts, with tons of nods to the original in both plotting and in Easter Eggs.  But this time I really felt the lack of a Dana and Louis - we never really have any point of reference characters to pull back and remind you this is happening in a mundane world.

Luckily, the cast is really funny, and likable, when they aren't cracking jokes, exactly.  Even the villainous Rowan is so goofy and almost plausible (we all knew that guy at the coffee shop), he's kind of likable.

This is going to sound weird, but I think the movie should have been about 20-30 minutes longer to let it breathe.  It is a fast-paced movie, and maybe too fast paced.  On this viewing I caught a lot of dialog and ideas about who the characters were that I didn't quite get the first go-round (but knew from stuff I'd read online before seeing the movie).  Like, this time Patty's local-history-buff part made way, way more sense.

Anyway - it's imperfect but still fun.

MST3K Watch: The Final Sacrifice (1990)

For whatever reason, this has long been one of my top 5 MST3K episodes.  Well, that reason is primarily Zap Rowsdower, the burly, mustachioed, Canadian-tuxedo'ed co-star of the movie.  Paired with the weiniest kid to ever star in a movie, it's a match made in cinema glory.

Marvel's Retailer Summit and Why We Bailed on Marvel a While Back (It Wasn't Diversity)

I generally don't pay attention to this stuff anymore, because it's usually a fire that burns itself out and the world keeps on spinning, but...

The Comics Internet has been in meltdown over the weekend as word got out about the first Marvel retailer summit in two decades, which - with the best of intentions, Marvel (God bless their hearts) decided to invite in ICV2 and let them report out on some of the conversations between their senior staff and retailers.

Frank conversations.

Part 1
Part 2
and the part that set the internet ablaze

I'm the first person to nod and acknowledge that sometimes the unicorn dreams of the world don't add up to financial success and security for all, no matter how much we want the opposite to be true.  But...

The sentence that is getting all the play:

We saw the sales of any character that was diverse, any character that was new, our female characters, anything that was not a core Marvel character, people were turning their nose up against.

I would point out, it seems like folks are ignoring all the "we like our diverse characters, and we were doing okay with them until just now" commentary surrounding that sentence.  In context (and you can see the article in that third link above), it sounds more like a guy trying to grasp market forces that changed super rapidly, is looking at what's not selling and making a statement that reflects his spreadsheets.  And he made some insensitive remarks in illustrating what they saw happening.  Which is why you don't do that.

Honestly, I cannot believe a wing of Disney opened the door to the amateur-hour world of comics press during frank conversations.  Off-the-cuff-on-the-record convos have never been the strong suit for most comics folks.  In the end, the same guy had to come back and admit that some of those new characters are popular or are doing fine and he undermined Marvel's significant efforts to diversify their character base and their fan base.  And that just makes Marvel, clearly, look awful.

My intention is not to protect Disney/ Marvel so much as to say - "Marvel, that was kind of bone headed on a multitude of levels" and to also say "My fellow progressives, it's possible many market forces are in play that are impacting sales on books featuring newer characters, which in Marvel's case of late, are those diverse characters because those are less established characters who don't have the foothold of, say, Spider-Man."

I'd argue that that there's probably a much more realistic reason Marvel is having issues than a sudden public disinterest in diversity.

None of this is news - but this is my "how I wandered off from Marvel" journey.