Bette Watch: Hush... Hush, Sweet Charlotte (1964)

I've seen Whatever Happened to Baby Jane? a few times, but somehow never watched the follow-up, Hush... Hush, Sweet Charlotte (1964).   If you've never seen Baby Jane, first, fix that situation in your life, then come back and finish this blog post.

Let's get this out of the way - the price of admission is worth it just for the cast.  Bette Davis, Olivia de Havilland, Agnes Moorehead, Joseph Cotton, and Mary Astor in her final film role before retiring.  It also features a young Bruce Dern, George Kennedy, and even the kid who plays "Dill" in To Kill a Mockingbird shows up for a scene.

This movie isn't a sequel to Baby Jane, but it's definitely a case of a spiritual and creative follow-up to the more famous first film.  And, this movie earned something like 7 Oscar nominations.  Personally, I'm not sure it's quite as good, and it drags quite a bit - something Baby Jane does in spots.

But here's the thing - if you can get through some of that "where is this going?" aspect of the movie, it's a taught melodramatic thriller seeping with creativity and its a true Southern Gothic in the best sense of the idea.   Pair that with the performers recruited for the movie, and you're definitely doing well.

Happy Birthday to Cassandra Peterson (aka: Elvira, Mistress of the Dark)

Happy 64th Birthday to Cassandra Peterson, aka: Elvira, Mistress of the Dark.

You're free! No post from me tonight!

Here's Nat King Cole prepping you for the season

Doc Watch: PBS's American Experience - Walt Disney, Part 1

True story.  The first birthday wish I remember making, and I'm not sure that I thought the mechanics of how this would work out or the sheer body horror of it all, but I distinctly remember wishing I'd become Mickey Mouse.  This went on for a few years until I read an article, probably in Dynamite! or something, about the fact there had been an honest-to-god guy named Walt Disney and it wasn't just a brand name like "Buster Brown" or "Cracker Jack".

Then, for a few years, I wished to become Walt Disney.  Then I wanted mutant powers or some such and all that went away.

I had a pretty good idea of what Walt Disney had done for entertainment.  Despite the fact the guy was dead (I was semi-obsessed with the fact that both Walt and Elvis were dead, but very present in our lives) I watched his cartoons, his TV network, his live-action adventure films, went to his amusement parks, watched his nature documentaries and I had a stuffed Mickey Mouse that was a pal.  My interest in animation and the entertainment industry continued, and at some point in high school I bought a Walt Disney biography and read one or two animation histories.  And not all of it was rosy.

In a lot of ways, reading up on Walt Disney was how I learned to reconcile the good with the bad when it comes to the folks we revere.

Super Watch: Superman IV - The Quest for Peace (Master Pancake Theater)

Oh, Superman IV.  You are not a good movie.

Maybe not the worst superhero movie ever put out, Superman IV was victim of severe budget cuts and shortfalls, overly ambitious filmmaking, muddled scripting and editing, and Jon Cryer just being a doofus.  I've written about the movie before.  At length.  So, go read that review.

For something like a decade, Austin has had it's own set of popular movie riffers in Master Pancake Theater.  It's sort of a cultish sort of thing to do in Austin, and they have their loyal legion, and while I like the idea, I've just never gotten off my butt to go see them.  After all, "riffed" movies are not something I've felt I've had a lack of access to in my lifetime after having grown up on Mystery Science Theater 3000 and still enjoying RiffTrax even today.

But I couldn't pass up this week's screening as it was, as you'll have guessed, Superman IV, a movie I have deep affection for, and am all too aware of its limitations.

Rice at Texas Home Opener - UT wins 42-28

After last week's disastrous performance against Notre Dame in South Bend, Texas fans were wondering how Charlie Strong would answer the challenges facing the team with the tools he's got on hand.  The reality of it is that, once that first game starts, it's not like he can go get new players or coaches until the end of the season.  It's a sane situation made crazy by the magical thinking of the sports press who still act as if coaches are grown ups, we're all kids and they will somehow produce magical results to kiss away our fears.

Jerrod Heard freaks us all out by actually adjusting to the situation on the field

Look, UT won this game 42-28.  But, as much of an academic and scholarly powerhouse as Rice University might be, no one has ever accused Rice of being in contention of a national football title.  They're on the schedule out of habit on both sides, because UT needs a team to play to work out some kinks, and because Rice gets some TV dollars out of the deal.

For once, I really do think UT was able to use the Rice game to sort some things out and to get a better feel for where we need to do some work.  The Notre Dame game was only a chance to witness the obvious lesson of "you need to work on looking like a Division I team."

Doc Watch: I Am Big Bird - The Caroll Spinney Story (2014)

If you want to watch a movie that will make you just kind of tear up for no reason over and over, I recommend the 2014 documentary I Am Big Bird: The Caroll Spinney Story.

As you'd expect from the many context clues above, this is a documentary about the guy who has played Big Bird on Sesame Street since the character first wandered onto the show.   He also (and I don't know how this works) plays Oscar the Grouch.  So, there you go.  A guy you never heard of is the heart and soul of the show literally every one of you people loved as a kid.

Doc Watch: American Movie (1999)

Fist things first:  as regular readers may know, one of my two undergraduate diplomas from Ye Olde University of Texas is in Communications, where I was in the Radio-Television-Film Department, and happened to be one of the lucky stiffs who went through the "Film Production" track.  Which was kind of a big deal, at least to me, as they only let in a handful of students into that track every semester.

Here, you can see my first experience shooting 16mm.*  And you get special appearances by our own JAL, occasional reader and longtime pal Shoemaker, and Kerry, who wound up selling me the very house I live in today.  Thanks, Kerry!  (she doesn't even know about this site, so, whatever).  Oh, yeah, and Michael in an alien suit that he already owned.  Because, you know, Michael.

The documentary, American Movie (1999), stirs up a lot of very specific feelings for me when I give it a whirl - something I don't think I've done in 15 years.   If you've not seen it, it's the very real story of a filmmaker from Wisconsin who has a dream of making a horror movie called Northwestern.  Mark Borchardt, the film's main subject, is a high school drop out, he probably drinks too much (and, I think you can infer that drugs were or are also involved somewhere in the picture), barely holds together a job as a newspaper delivery man, is split from the mother of his three children, is 30 and lives at home with his dysfunctional parents.

Despite a lack of any formal training, a lack of experience on any other films other than his own 8mm projects, and a seeming inability to project manage himself whatsoever, Mark remains focused on the dream of finishing a movie.  Maybe.  Just maybe not Northwestern.

The movie uses the "aspiring filmmaker" as the excuse for really getting to know Mark, his family and friends, his corner of the world.  The film takes a look at what the American Dream means to a guy like Mark and his friends, guys from middle class families in middle America, folks for whom things haven't really panned out by the age of 30, and for whom it doesn't look as if things are set to improve a whole lot.

In a country built on the promise of opportunity, what does that really mean when the dream is creating a movie?  And, really, what's the dream behind the dream?

Sci-Fi Watch: The Day the Earth Stood Still (1951)

It's been forever since I watched The Day the Earth Stood Still (1951), and I wish that weren't so.  It's easy to bag on any movie from this era of self-serious science fiction, of lantern jawed scientists and sweetly passive women who just want to help our hero by making coffee or getting out of the way.  It's dated.  Right.  Got it.*

I will say, there's really nothing better than the scene with three doctors lighting up their Lucky Strikes and pondering the incomprehensibility of our visiting alien's medicine and lifespan.  That, you can take to the bank.

Six years on after the end of World War II and the bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, director Robert Wise (a director with just an astounding filmography) lensed one of the most influential films of the era, and I'm not just counting sci-fi, where the impact was absolutely mind-boggling.  Where Gojira looked back at the nuclear nightmare as having unleashed an unthinkable beast as a testament to man's folly, The Day the Earth Stood Still stood as a warning about hubris, about our place in the universe as we believed ourselves now unstoppable.

Content Free "Marvel's Jessica Jones" Trailer Arrives

We were big fans of the Alias and The Pulse comics.  Looking forward to this one.