Noir Watch: They Drive By Night (1940)

Released in that precarious period as the Depression wore on, but while America hadn't yet stepped up and become involved in the wars brewing across the rest of the planet, They Drive By Night (1940) sits at an interesting crossroads.  It certainly features the sort of crime-story from the pulps of the 20's and 30's, but doesn't delve as deeply into moral ambiguity of the post-war film noir pictures nor a good Chandler or Hammett story.

Even the actors are at an interesting period in their careers.  Raft plays the lead and Bogart takes the back seat as his brother, Bogart becoming Hollywood royalty only a year later with The Maltese Falcon and Casablanca in 1942.  Raft certainly continued on as a popular actor for some time, but only one would remain a household name.  Ann Sheridan was also very popular during the era, but Lupino was just breaking out from the blonde dye and good-girl roles she'd been playing.  And she's really damn good here in a Femme Fatale role that casts the movie squarely into the categorization of film noir, even if it's a bit early for the genre (no doubt a version of this in the 1950's would have allowed Raft and Lupino to knock-boots off screen).

"Bride of Frankenstein" at 80

I think that one time I spent a month doing posts on tumblr, or the multiple time I've covered the movie on this site, might have dropped a clue or two that I'm a fan of the 1935 movie, Bride of Frankenstein.  Yesterday marked the 80th Anniversary of the movie's release, a remarkably long time for a movie to remain vital and immediate, to be continually finding new fans.

To me, the appeal of the movie is obvious.  It's hilarious, horrific, bizarre, melodramatic, self-serious, grotesque, childish and completely dependent on a movie I enjoy almost as much to make any sense.  And it features a completely unnecessary opening framing device, clearly there to please the creative staff and no one else.

If the original Frankenstein film fails to capture the book, this one more or less throws the book away while  also laying claim to it, using small portions and ideas of the book to tell a new and unnecessary story, but somehow a deeply fulfilling one - and in the process makes a double-bill of Frankenstein and Bride of Frankenstein, really, the best way to see both pictures and consider it one long project with an interruption mid-way through.  Upon returning from that break, you'll notice a change in tone of the film to a grander sense of scale, weirder characters and poor Colin Clive seemingly more wrecked than in even the first movie, all the while everyone else seems to be having a grand old time putting on a show.

80's Watch: The Hunger (1983)

I don't think I've watched The Hunger (1983) since I was living with pal CarlaBeth back in college, so - wow, almost 20 years ago.  Which means that Jamie, who I started dating at the time, has been saying "The Hunger of David Bowie!" then "I sure do fancy a cheeseburger!" at me in an iffy British accent for almost two decades.

My, how time passes.

Which is exactly what this movie is about, by the way.

I was a bit surprised to see the movie show up on Turner Classic.  I mean, yeah, it's more than 3 decades old, but I have no recollection of TCM previously throwing caution to the wind and going ahead and showing partial nudity or that much blood.  And, this being a vampire movie, boy howdy is there a lot of blood.  And Bauhaus!  Those Andy Hardy movies are way low on their offering of Bauhaus.

Upon the arrival of the Nephew

Hello, babies. Welcome to Earth. It’s hot in the summer and cold in the winter. It’s round and wet and crowded. At the outside, babies, you’ve got about a hundred years here. There’s only one rule that I know of, babies — "God damn it, you’ve got to be kind."


Kurt Vonnegut
God Bless You Mr. Rosewater

Welcome to the world, Raylan.  We're going to do our best to make it a decent sphere for you.

Sci-Fi Watch: The Edge of Tomorrow (2014)

I am not a Tom Cruise fan.  I think the first Mission Impossible movie started my turn on the guy, but I remember just groaning my way through The Last Samurai, and I've mostly only seen Cruise movies under duress for about a decade.  I'm sure many of you feel the same way about some actors that I like, but you're wrong, and you're going to have to live with that knowledge.

So it was that I had no intention of seeing Edge of Tomorrow (2014).  And, apparently, I wasn't alone, because it tanked so hard at the box office that they retitled the movie for the home video release to the, let's be honest, entirely more accurate Live. Die. Repeat.  

And then you people all started saying "yeah, no, I saw that thing twice in the theater" and "it's way, way better than you'd expect".   And because I actually do listen to you people from time to time, and I have HBO, I gave it a whirl.

The movie is a curious mix of Groundhog Day and watching someone else play (badly) through a video game, which doesn't really sell the movie, but that's what I've got.  And it's both a strength and weakness of the movie.  It's a novel concept to see Tom Cruise get killed over and over only to pop up alive again with the knowledge he's gained and be able to move forward, or sideways, or whatever direction will keep him alive a bit longer.  

And, like a video game, there's not much in the way of character development or complexity to the story beyond the conceit.  It's a sort of very interesting two hour movie parlor trick that, I think, mostly works very well.  But, nonetheless, it barely holds itself together, assuming thousands of deaths for the same person would not have left them a quivering mess, or the sheer repetition would not have driven him mad to the point of embracing annihilation.

This truly does feel like the first movie I've seen by the generation of people raised on video games to the point where the structure of the game is, in itself, part of the narrative.  Like I said, it does occasionally feel like watching someone else play a video game they keep failing at, which is a sort of weird way to watch a movie, and something that very occasionally gave me pause during the movie.*  You have to bear in mind, I don't actually play video games, so read into that whatever you like.

That said, Edge of Tomorrow is definitely worth checking out.  The movie, thankfully, doesn't take itself terribly seriously and seems to know what it is.  I see why folks embraced the movie.  I'm not sure it will launch a new genre of movies or copycats out there, but I think as it plays on cable, people will find it and it'll find the audience that missed it the first go-round.

Oh, and Tom Cruise isn't totally annoying.  He's actually pretty likable, as is his co-star, Emily Blunt.

So, yeah.  Good action, novel plot contrivance and interesting ideas sprinkled in to make it a bit better than it had to be.  And pretty fun, really.  So, good call, y'all.




*I'm currently reading Ready Player One, and when I finish it, I'll talk a bit about some of my challenges enjoying that book for some related reasons

"Batman vs. Superman"and "Star Wars VII" - avoiding the open-ended questions

I've already gotten one or two "hey, whaddayathink about the new Batman/ Superman trailer?" messages from people who know me, know I like me some Superman and Batman, and who know I was not a fan of the last Superman adventure by the same creative team.  And, likewise regarding Star Wars, which I've not been all that into for the last decade, I guess.

So, with the HD trailer now released for Batman and Superman are Going to Punch Each Other in the Rain and the certainty even my dad will now have seen the trailer - rather than answer the same open ended question in short bursts of tweets or Google Hangouts or whatever, here we go:

Ah, man.  We know you're doing your best, buddy.

The DCU that WB is working on for the movies does not jive well with the overall DCU I've liked for 30-odd years of my life (or 37 if you want to want to count when I got into Superman: The Movie and Super Friends - or, heck, before that if you're partial to Adam West, and I am).

There are pretty obvious lessons the WB execs believe they learned from the success of the Dark Knight trilogy and failure of Green Lantern and Superman Returns (although any kind of thoughtful evaluation that didn't require execs saving face just wasn't going to happen on the WB lot).   And in that lesson-learning, much like DC Comics believed with the New 52, everything had to be Batman.  And not just Batman, but the same Batman that shows up in Arkham Asylum video games.

Anyway, I tend to think that the point of Superman and Batman running up against each other is not just a question of the the tone of the characters coming into conflict - it's also the world and worldview colliding and reflecting off one another.  And this isn't that.  This is someone mistaking grim'n'gritty as an ends unto itself.

SW Watches: While the City Sleeps (1956)

I DVR'd While the City Sleeps (1956) off of TCM because I saw it starred Rhonda Fleming and Ida Lupino, and that Dana Andrews is no slouch.  But I like Lupino in particular, and while her part is not gigantic in this movie, as always, she nails it.  And, hey, it also features Vincent Price in another playboy-layabout role, because that's more or less what he always did until he got recast as the master of horror.

Also, turns out this was directed by the always terrific Fritz Lang, and was one of his final projects as a director.

Rhonda Fleming = Production Value

A Whole Lotta TV: Kimmy Schmidt, Daredevil, Batman, Americans, Mad Men, Flash and more - keeping me from movies

I realized I hadn't been posting a whole lot, at least not about movies.  But I've also been watching a metric @#$%-ton of TV lately.

Like a lot of you, I heard the Tina Fey produced Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt was pretty good, and at 22 minutes per episode, only 13 episodes and that each one was like eating a box of Hot Tamales or Mike & Ike's, it was the first series I've binge-watched since I was home with the flu and watched 2 seasons of Archer.

A concept that, no doubt, HBO would have insisted been a brooding melodrama with plenty of sexual dysfunction and nihilism, this take on "what happens when a girl is kidnapped at 14 and doesn't leave her bunker cult layer until she's 29ish?" is, instead, super upbeat, life-affirming and a hell of a lot of fun to watch.  The brand of humor feels akin to the dizzy chaos of early 30 Rock, and even if we only ever get these 13 episodes, they were pretty damn enjoyable.  But, yeah, I guess there's a second season guaranteed by Netflix (where the show is living), so I'm down with that.

Anyway, it's not often I watch 13 episodes of something so fast I don't even mention it between start and finish, but there you are.

And before we move on:

April 15th, 1865 - 150 years since the assassination of Abraham Lincoln

April 15th, 2015 marks the 150th anniversary of the assassination of President Abraham Lincoln at Ford's Theatre in Washington DC.

Lincoln in April, 1865

On the evening of April 14th, Lincoln was shot point blank while sitting in the Presidential box while watching a play.  On April 9th, General Lee of the Confederate States of America had surrendered to General Grant at Appomatox, and the war between the states was effectively concluded.

Were it fiction, the assassination might be considered a weirdly indulgent bit of storytelling in a sprawling tale of the original sin of the birth of the United States.  As a very real event, Lincoln's death stands as a moment of personal tragedy that somehow echoes as harshly as the four years of war and hundreds of thousands lost.  The timing of the assassination meant that we never saw a coda to the 16th presidency, would never question Lincoln's handling of Reconstruction or witness Lincoln watching Washington DC come back together as the capital of a single nation.  We would never see Lincoln as a private citizen no longer with the weight of the nation resting upon his shoulders.

There's plenty of information out there about Lincoln's assassin, and I won't belabor any of the details of Lincoln's murder or the story of his murderer.

Instead, I'll remember that Lincoln was a man of his times, but a remarkable one at that.  In the midst of the war (and historians will never tire of debating the motives of the action) Lincoln produced the Emancipation Proclamation.

While the nation fought a miserable war against itself, Lincoln took the final step that the states that had fled for the confederacy feared he would upon his election, and forever changed the course of the nation.  

And by virtue of the power, and for the purpose aforesaid, I do order and declare that all persons held as slaves within said designated States, and parts of States, are, and henceforward shall be free; and that the Executive government of the United States, including the military and naval authorities thereof, will recognize and maintain the freedom of said persons.

And I hereby enjoin upon the people so declared to be free to abstain from all violence, unless in necessary self-defence; and I recommend to them that, in all cases when allowed, they labor faithfully for reasonable wages.

And I further declare and make known, that such persons of suitable condition, will be received into the armed service of the United States to garrison forts, positions, stations, and other places, and to man vessels of all sorts in said service.

And upon this act, sincerely believed to be an act of justice, warranted by the Constitution, upon military necessity, I invoke the considerate judgment of mankind, and the gracious favor of Almighty God.

This act, which Lincoln would ultimately perform as a proclamation rather than by way of political maneuvering or clout.  And, as the war drew to a close, the 13th Amendment was proposed, but Lincoln would not live to see its ratification.

And, on that night in Ford's Theater, a believer in abstract causes that would always trump the dignity of his fellow man, sought revenge for the shame he felt had been bestowed upon his state and the hardships he felt the South would continue to endure.  Failing to see the irony in his own battle cry of "Sic semper tyrannis!", he fled the stage, hobbled, to die badly in barn, disowned by the very people he thought would hail him as a hero and protect him.

I don't need to tell you much else about Lincoln.  He's all but a folk hero to us here in the States, and probably beyond.  His funeral train was met by endless masses, and he continues to inspire generation after generation of Americans.  The Lincoln Monument in Washington DC stands as a stark reminder of not just the man, but of his times and of the great penance paid by the United States for our moral failings, his death a closing note to the cost of all that had preceded it.

Birthday Gift: Taking It Back to the Beginning

For my 40th, Jamie got me the deluxe collector's set of the 1960's Batman TV show.

Thanks, Jamie!

It's a pretty fantastic set with all the episodes cleaned up for BluRay and HD TV.  There's also an "Adam West scrapbook", episode guide replica set of Batman cars and a Hotwheels Batmobile.  All in all, pretty nice!

The picture and sound quality is top notch, so after all these years of not being able to get ahold of this show, it seems worth the wait.

The family lore is that, when I was a tiny kid my mom couldn't get me to hold still or be quiet when she was trying to make dinner for my dad and brother, until she realized I'd totally hold still and shut up if Batman and Robin were on the screen.  So, every weekday when the show was running in syndication (this would have been about '76), I was placed in front of the TV and would happily watch while she made Mac n' Cheese or whatever.  The legend goes on to swear my first words were "Matman", which I'm sure made my parents feel really appreciated.

My memory was of just being a huge Batman nut.  There are photos somewhere of me with a pacifier and cape.  Like a lot of kids, when the Tim Burton Batman movie came out and the press discussed the Adam West show, it was my first time finding out the show was a comedy.  On the strength of the Burton movie, Batman '66 came back in syndication, and has been aired off and on again since, but legal wranglings between Warner Bros. and 20th Century Fox prevented home video release.

All of that seems to have resolved itself and now I can enjoy the show once again.  And, hey, I look forward to sharing the show with my impending nephew when the time comes.  I hope he takes it as seriously as I did, because, dang it, this is a version of Batman worth loving, too.  And not just because of Julie Newmar.