Cap Watch: Captain America II - Death Too Soon!

This evening we took in the second, not lesser, but - indeed - final installment of the TV movie exploration of Marvel's Sentinel of Liberty, Captain America in Captain America II: Death Too Soon (1979).

The movie is perhaps even more of a curiosity than the prior attempt, but it's worth noting that Wonder Woman - which we sort of think of as fully formed, first aired as a TV movie with tennis-pro Cathy Lee Crosby as a jump-suited, blonde Wonder Woman prior to the decision to try another TV movie pilot with Lynda Carter, which led into the series (which had to switch networks and decades before the 1977 season, just to make life more complicated).

Things were a little different back when you had to actually be home to watch TV when it aired, and once it was gone, it was gone.

Cap DOES NOT let thugs take money from sweet old ladies.  No, really.

I genuinely feel this movie is better acted and directed than the origin story, and the plot plods along at a mosey instead of a painful death march.  I'm not saying this even good TV, but I am saying it didn't physically hurt to watch (even if I did end the movie with a migraine halo).

Cap Watch: Captain America (1979)

It's been a long time since I've seen this version of Captain America, but I am pretty sure that this was also my first real exposure to Ol' Wing Head.  What's weird is that I remember knowing who Cap was when I watched the movie, but I don't know why.  I didn't own any Captain America comics until 4th or fifth grade, so I guess I was watching those "throws his mighty shield" cartoons.

If I had to guess, this movie was intended as a bit of a pilot for a Captain America TV show, and the movie didn't get the eyeballs that they were hoping for.  This would have been after Wonder Woman and The Incredible Hulk were on TV, so there was recent precedent for making super-heroes work on TV in a dramatic context, as well as sci-fi concepts like The Bionic Woman/ Six Million Dollar Man franchises.  But, if I am going to pick nits, the primary difference between those shows and Captain America (1979) is that the Captain America movie is very, very not good.

The sins are many.  It nonsensically overcomplicates Cap's origin, strips it of any WWII-era ties, and goes all in on post-Watergate cynicism regarding patriotism while paradoxically insisting we "cram Captain America down their throats".

This is the part of the year in which I watch a reality show about dancing!

This is the part of the year during which, if I want to see my wife, I watch the Fox dancing competition "reality" program, So You Think You Can Dance?

Of the possible reality game shows she could have selected to watch, it's one of the more innocuous things I could deal with.  It's not dubious, karaoke-style singing a la American Idol.  And it's not about a panel of judges that I know nothing about, a la The Voice.  It doesn't make me hate humanity (see: any reality programming gameshow on MTV).  And it's not as relentlessly depressing as most dating or "unscripted" things that, for real, I cannot get my head around at all.

But I also know next to nothing about the art of dance.  If it didn't feature Madonna expressing herself circa 1989 or the ladies of En Vogue instructing me to "free my mind", I am not sure how much attention I paid to anyone dancing anywhere during my formative years.

I believe we are now in season 478 of So You Think You Can Dance? and I feel no closer to understanding dance any better.  I listen to the critiques, shrug, and have little to no opinion.

Birthday of Marilyn Monroe

Norma Jeane Mortenson, June 1, 1926

Musical Watch: On the Town (1949)

I've seen On the Town (1949) before, but it was years ago and I couldn't begin to guess the context other than that it was probably on cable and I had an evening to kill.

This one is years after the heyday of the Busby Berkeley spectaculars (42nd Street was 1933) and tilts much more toward what was coming in by 1952 with Singing in the Rain or even Oklahoma! (1955).  But the bright lights of New York itself are still the attraction as in so many of those musicals of the 1930's, and as a former Broadway show - produced at the tail-end of the second World War, the original show sits at a curious precipice between eras.  And, of course, they must have rewritten plenty of the show to accommodate the fact WWII was actually over by the time the movie went into production.

The plot:  three sailors disembark at Navy Yard in New York, New York for a 24 hour shore leave.  They intend to see the sites, maybe get some dates with some girls, etc... when Gabey (Gene Kelley) falls for the girl in a poster for "Miss Turnstiles", a dubious honorific bestowed upon girls looking for publicity for their career as a performer in NYC and a bit of shoddy publicity for the NY transit system.  And, of course, he meets Miss Turnstiles (Vera-Ellen) quite by accident, convincing his pals Chip (Frank Sinatra) and Ozzie (Jules Munshin) to help in pursuit after they lose track of her.

They meet an amorous cab driver (Betty Garrett) and a tap-dancing anthropologist (Ann Miller), and hi-jinks ensue.

Electra Wut? There's a new Electra Woman and Dyna Girl show coming. Because of course there is.

Oh, Deidre Hall.  You and your magnificent coifs.  And Judy Strangis of the gigantic eyes.

They may not have had Lynda Carter's budget (nor been Lynda Carter), but they had their own thing going on, including an amazing vehicle and the finest special effects you could produce using video overlays in 1976.

Electra Wow!

Seriously, only Lynda Carter may have rivaled Deidre Hall for amazing hair in 1976-1977, and both knew how to make a superhero outfit work.

I have only the haziest memories of Electra Woman and Dyna Girl from my own youth.  The Sid and Marty Kroft shows were still on in rotation around 3:00 in the afternoon in the 1970's and early 80's, but it's hard to say what I remember as snippets and flashes of memory and what was what I caught later in college (and afterward) on basic cable.

Slowly making my way through DC's "Convergence"

Last week DC released the final issue of their Convergence mini-series, the two-month stop gap from DC Comics that was originally advertised as something editorial was doing while they took a break from publishing to move from DC's traditional home of NYC to sunny LA.

Of course, well in advance, it became clear that Convergence was going to be more than just a hiccup in DC's publishing schedule.  After the initial skyrocketing sales for The New 52, units moved have fallen off, and time and again, DC has wound up canceling a huge number of their initial offering of 52 books and the successors of same, all while keeping up appearances by maintaining a publishing line of 52 books (which always felt like something dreamed up by an actuary somewhere, so why it was part of their public marketing, I will never know).

"Welcome to... The Honeycomb Hide-Out!"

The first hint that we could count on major changes, post-Convergence, was that DC decided to follow their award-winning, best-selling Wonder Woman run by well-known comic writer Brian Azzarrello by hiring the previously-unpublished wife of popular comic artist David Finch (an artist with whom cheesecake was pretty much an inevitability) to pen the series.  It was a signal to anyone who has followed the industry for the past two decades that DC was basically putting New 52 Wonder Woman in a holding pattern for a while, but if you absolutely need a Wonder Woman comic - here's one to read (and, please, do not notice that Sensation Comics and Wonder Woman '77 are both fantastic and not technically part of the main stable of DC's titles managed by their core comics people).

Movie Watch: From Here to Eternity (1953)

I like to think I've seen my fair share of movies, but, not so much.  For example, I'd never seen the sweeping 1953 World War II-era drama From Here to Eternity.

The picture is by and for the generation that had just endured World War II, and takes maybe a little more work to watch and appreciate for those of us born a couple of generations later.  Add in 60 years of movies lightly riffing off of this film, spoofing it, etc... and much of it may not feel all that fresh on a first viewing in 2015.  But it's a great example of the "(insert career) and the women who love them" model of drama.

The story takes place in Hawaii in the months leading up to Pearl Harbor, mostly around an army base as Private Prewitt (played by Montgomery Clift) arrives, newly transferred from a bugle company to a rifle squad of his own volition.  He runs into a pal, Angelo Maggio (Sinatra), who is a bit of a company clown, and is greeted by his new Sergeant, Warden (Burt Lancaster).  Add in Deborah Kerr and Donna Reed as love interests, and you've got a plot.

Trailer for "Tower" doc looks pretty amazing

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I grew up in Austin, TX, attended the University of Texas and recently received my "ten year pin" for my time working at the University (I haven't quite spent my whole career there).

If you aren't aware, after killing his mother and wife, Charles Whitman climbed to the top of the tower at the center of the University of Texas campus - a building which is over 27 stories - and killed people on the stairwell and then began shooting from the observation deck.

Whitman killed 16 people (in 2001, a 17th died of complications for injuries sustained that day), and more than 30 additional people were wounded.

At the time, Austin was a sleepy college town in the middle of a long, hot summer, and summer session is never the busiest of times on campus.   The impact was devastating, and the shootings were still discussed and an impetus for campus policy when I was there in the 1990's.

Watching just the trailer, I was surprised that my reaction was genuinely visceral.  I've been up in the elevator, I've stood on the observation deck, I walk across the plaza routinely, and those are all places I live and work.  And I am well aware all of this happened here.  And could happen again tomorrow.  After all, we had an active shooter in my building just about five years ago.

The after effects of the tower shootings were larger than you'd believe.  The event helped lead to the establishment of campus PD's across the country as well as SWAT team development.

This film looks to cover the personal stories of the victims, and I'd rather that be told than another step-by-step recounting of Whitman's final days and hours.  Good people were caught in the massacre, and it's important to remember all of them as well.

Looking forward to the film.

Happy Birthday, Dashiell Hammett

May 27th marks the 121st birthday of author Dashiell Hammett, a writer who's impact on the modern culture is nigh-incalculable.

I'm actually currently re-reading Red Harvest for the first time in fifteen years and will make my way back through The Maltese Falcon, The Dain Curse and a few more.  And you really can't beat the short fiction of the Continental Op short stories.

And, of course, he was responsible for The Thin Man novel and assisted with the production of the movie.

Hammett had been a Pinkerton Detective, a career not so readily available in this era, but it set the stage for both the material of his fiction as well as the approach his detectives took.  he served in both World Wars, drank too much, was a terrible husband and absentee father and a left-winger from jump.  And he had a 30 year romance with Lillian Hellman.  Like you do.

I'll be honest, I love this guy's work.  His characters feel real and lived in, perhaps world warn and weary, but believably so, and his plots are just haphazard enough as the detectives sort through the mess they've stumbled into to feel believable when one is surrounded by liars with agendas.  And he's got a snappy prose style.

Here's to Mr. Hammett on his birthday.  Here's to one of the father's of American modern fiction in all its forms.