Movie Watch 2012: Comanche Station

PaulT and I journeyed to The Alamo Drafthouse on 6th street for the occasionally-occurring* Alamo Cinema Club.  Both Paul I really dig this experience.  Its a bit like the better bits of film school, but with no quiz.

Tonight's screening was Comanche Station featuring Randolph Scott and directed by Budd Boetticher.

As was much discussed post-screening, Comanche Station feels very much like the transition between old school westerns and the coming Spaghetti Western or grittier Western ushered in by the likes of Sam Peckinpah.  While somewhat coded, the movie suggests some of the harsher realities of the frontier, and partially due to the era portrayed and material its working with, doesn't fit neatly into modern molds of dealing with how the west was settled.

Mostly, its a story about a frontiersman who barters a trade for an anglo woman captured by Comanches.  At a closed trading post, they meet up with a sly character from Cody's past who can ride along with them to provide protection, but who is also a threat to both Cody and the woman he's transporting back to her home.

In many ways, its a movie about assumptions versus reality with the characters.  And it works.  The narrative is clockwork tight, the cast small and the feeling of distrust among the members of the party is poisonous.

Anyhow, a lot was said about the work of Budd Boetticher, an independent producer operating just outside the studio system, and I'm curious to see his other westerns (all featuring Randolph Scott).





*its like movie geek Brigadoon

DC lurches and flails around a bit with cancellations and new books

I waited a few days before posting because...  eh, who cares?

Anyhoo...  to nobody's surprise, DC's New 52 is going to remain DC's 52 as they cancel 6 titles and bring in 6 new titles.  Its actually not a terrible plan from a business perspective, I'd guess.  It sounds like they had the next 6 titles ready to go, and they're employing the Jack Welch-approved cull the bottom 10% rule to their own titles.

They're losing:

• Static Shock
• Mr. Terrific
• Men of War
• Black Hawks
• Hawk and Dove
• OMAC

I'm not overly surprised by the loss of any of these titles.  Aside from OMAC, the other 4 of these I read were a mess from issue 1, and as much as I wanted to support Sterling Gates after his work on Supergirl, I hadn't grown to like this iteration of Hawk and Dove, and Liefeld's art is not my cup of tea.

Its unfortunate to see Static fail once again, when the potential for the character to be DC's Spider-Man seems so high.  And as much as I have liked Mr. Terrific in theory, Wallace's take in issue 1 felt so generic and disposable, I abandoned the series immediately rather than deal with hoping that it might improve.

Blackhawks was trying to be like the current GI Joe, which is already a successful franchise elsewhere, so I couldn't figure out why they bothered to try to simply echo an established and beloved property you can already buy, and Men of War seemed simply ill-conceived.  Its a war book or its not.

OMAC I've kind of enjoyed, but I don't really care that its vanishing.  Its like when that show you catch occasionally disappears and its only months later that you realize its gone.  I can certainly live without it.

As replacements, we're getting:

End of the Week

Ms. Grahame and I hope you have a swell Friday.

Just, you know, no trouble, if you don't mind.

Movie Watch 2012: Christine (the movie about the magical, haunted car)

You know, the movie was never as good as the book, but the movie holds up pretty well, all things considered.  It features mostly in-camera and practical effects.  The cars are sleek, the music is cool, the atmosphere holds fairly well (though not as well as the novel), and it captures something unique about quietly going off the rails in high school, I think.

I am not sure I'd want to go back and read the book of Christine.  There's no way it would be as good at 36 as it was when I was 13, but the book seemed pretty fun at the time.

The novel seemed much more subtle in its approach to the corruption of Arnie, but the movie still does its job thanks to Keith Gordon's gradual transformation through the film, 3 parts script, 7 parts Gordon.  Credit to director John Carpenter for this one, too, even if its a kick in the gut to watch car after car get destroyed in the name of making this movie.

The movie also stars John Stockwell as Dennis, and Alexandra Paul as Leigh Cabot.  You will remember Alexandra Paul as The Virgin Connie Swail in 1987's Dragnet or as Lt. Stephanie Holden from Baywatch.

I always liked the idea of a car with a personality.  It was like if KITT were a homicidal maniac (that would actually be KARR, I suppose), and the fact that Stephen King made Christine the world's worst girlfriend on top of everything else was just a stroke of genius.

The movie does have one of the best closing lines of any movie, and I have to tip my hat.

"God, I hate rock and roll."

Remember that one, kids.  Also, never mess with a nerd's car.

Signal Watch saw "The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo"

Hiatus break in favor of keeping up with movies for 2012.

I saw The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo.  Its fun for the whole family.  Take Grandma and your toddlers.*

Its okay.  Nothing groundbreaking.  Nice cinematography, convincing acting, appropriately bleak sets and settings, and they did a much better job of condensing the plot than the Swedish film counterpart (even if they lifted some of the story changes).  Rooney Mara is pretty good.  They eliminated the various sexual exploits of the hero enough that I didn't see the entire story as one long Mary Sue story for a middle-aged journalist imagining the sorts of women with whom it might be interesting to canoodle.

After reading the book and seeing a completely different movie of the same book this year, this may have been a bit much.  I sort of wonder if the fact that we're all already familiar with the book and movie has hurt the box office numbers as (1) why bother to do this again? (2) those familiar with the story might not actually want to see some of that up on the big screen and (3) people already had numerous chances to take a pass on the material and are just continuing to do so.

But, mostly, I wonder if the studios need to rethink releasing grim, adult thrillers upon the public during the holiday period.  I certainly wouldn't pitch this one to my folks for a night out at the movies (its not exactly Tintin).  That said, its after the holidays and the theater I was in this evening was packed.  So maybe it'll have some post-holiday staying power as Granny heads back to Arizona or whatever.

I wish I had access to an orchestra, because I have an idea for a Goulet-style theme song for the movie.  Jamie is already sick of me trying out various lyrics on her.

*do not do this

Hiatus

I really don't feel like doing this for a few days.

Also, in Googling "hiatus", I learned that there's a part of your GI track called the "hiatus".  Here's what it looks like when you pull your hiatus while eating nachos.

why did they draw in that guy's bangs?

I shall return anon.

Movies 2012: MST3K watched Gamera

In the spirit of naming every movie I watch this year, with the help of Joel, Tom Servo and Crow, last night I watched Gamera.


You can watch it on Netflix streaming RIGHT NOW.

I don't know what one says about Gamera that hasn't been said before.  Its a movie about a 40-story, ancient, bi-pedal turtle that absorbs heat and energy as food (so missles, etc...  only make him stronger), spits it out as atomic mouth blasts and rampages like Godzilla with none of the motivation or style, but that turtle has joie de vivre.  Oh, and he can fly.  Its a mixed bag.

Mostly, we all come to Gamera to hate Kenny.  Because Kenny sucks.

Gamera to scale with a model of a boat.

Really, I can handle Godzilla movies on their own, but the only way to watch Gamera is with a healthy dose of The Satellite of Love.  I recommend watching with MST3K.

Signal Watch Bears Witness to: Mission Impossible 4 - Ghost Protocol

In many ways, I shouldn't be talking about this movie.  I didn't care for Mission Impossibles 1 or 2, never saw MI: 3, I have it in for Tom Cruise, I didn't pay for my own ticket and The Admiral (who DID pay for my ticket) has pre-warned me he shall rebut anything I have to say about this movie.  But I swore an oath that I would talk about all the movies I watched this year, and at its core, Mission Impossible 4 is only partly an Apple and BMW commercial, and it is mostly a movie.

I'm going to give this movie its props.  It knows what it is, it does part of that mission amazingly well.  This movie blows stuff up with aplomb, it has phenomenal cinematography, beautiful locations, crazy action sequences, stunning stunts, cool gadgets, etc...  I think a lot of folks would enjoy this movie and they would not be wrong.

Our heroes are funny, they're good looking, they do their own stunts, they look great in clothes, they do the "we look stressed" thing well and evenly for 2 hours of the movie.  If you can embrace that the first stunt Tom Cruise pulls in the movie wouldn't have taken him out for the rest of the movie, you'll be willing to believe that he walked away from the other 2 dozen career-ending moves he makes before he saves the day.

Look...  these sorts of movies sort of quit being my thing a while back.  I like action or adventure movies, and I don't mind macguffins moving me from set piece to set piece, but I want the movie to at least pretend to care a bit about plot details and to not just leave ellipses at every possible location, or for the macguffin of the entire movie to make a bit of sense.  In a lot of ways, the script felt like something dusted off from the mid-90's, when we'd moved past Commando and wanted at least some hand-waving of intelligence, even if it usually was all smoke and mirrors.

Watch Ann Miller dance in a magical land of weirdness

I like to think we're just seeing the crazy delusion that Ann Miller saw all the time.

My Man Enemy Ace Don't Shiv