Watched: 12/30/2019
Format: Noir Alley on TCM on DVR
Viewing: Second
Decade: 1940's
Eddie Muller introduced Criss Cross (1949) as an exemplar of noir and an underrated movie, and he's absolutely right. I'd seen this movie a while back, and it's absolutely stuck with me - so when it made the programming list for Noir Alley, I was thrilled to watch it again.
Here's to a year where, hopefully, we all learned something, even if it was a hard-earned or hard-fought lesson. Here's to a year where the shadows seemed to grow darker, and where we found light, it shone brighter. Here's to knowing what the coming year can bring, and not being on our heels this time when it comes.
Every night has a morning, and the sun always comes up.
Let's get our game faces on and be those lights shining brighter.
Let's extend a hand and help others to their feet. Let's stand between those who are looking to strike and those who can't raise their hands. Let's do it because we know the right thing to do, even when it's hard.
I have a lot of improvements I want to make in 2020. Now, we're gonna try and make this work.
Watched: 12/29/2019
Format: Disney+
Viewing: Second
Decade: 2010
I don't know that I need to write up Tangled (2010). But here's what I think:
This movie is a letter of permission for some young women to realize that maybe their relationship with their parents is kinda toxic.
By that I do not mean that all young women have a toxic relationship with their moms, but dang... there is a reason that this movie ends with a young woman cutting off her girlish long locks as she severs her relationship with the woman who has been gaslighting her and filling her head with bad ideas for her entire life. And I think we've all sorta known that young woman who went to college, realized maybe the world was not the place she'd been taught, and wound up shaving their head by second semester.
There is some phenomenal character animation in this movie in the classic Disney tradition - I mean, Maximus is a frikkin' delight - and I really enjoy the number by all the tough-guys singing about their dreams. The new stuff was in the effects - sure - but the movement and camera work in the movie is kinda breathtaking when you watch Rapunzel zipping around like Spider-Man on her own hair. They really make the space inside the tower work, as well as in the construction-site sequence.
But, yeah, this movie is going to hold up for a very, very long time as it works with timeless themes, for both Rapunzel and Flynn, and the animation may look marginally dated by Frozen II standards, but I'll argue the Disney styling will keep it fresh for decades.
Watched: 12/29/2019
Format: Criterion Channel
Viewing: First
Decade: 1930's
Look, it's possible Bette Davis is one of 5 or so finest actors to have graced the screen, at least in Hollywood films. Yeah, she is "of the era" on some things, but - man, even in not-great films she's a power house, and then in something that plays to her range and strengths?
Watched: 10/20/2019
Format: Amazon Streaming
Viewing: Second
Decade: So, so 1990's
Prepping for New Year's Eve, AmyC and Ryan return to the indie film scene of the 1990's when Tarantino could do no wrong and Miramax was the hottest game in movies. But what if they decided to Voltron their talent into a single, unimpeachably delightful and quirky movie made up of four separate segments by four separate auteurs? It'd be great, right? ...right?
Music: Vertigogo- Combustible Edison, Four Rooms OST Holidays 2019:
Happy birthday to Star Trek phenom Nichelle Nichols, who is a pioneer of television and pop culture as well as a pioneer in making a 10 year old The League's heart go pitter-patter.
And a 44 year old The League's heart go pitter-patter. But I digress.
Here's to one of the greats on her b-day! May she have cake, family and friends!
Watched: 12/27/2019
Format: TCM on DVR
Viewing: First
Decade: 1980's
I've been aware of Victor/ Victoria (1982) since, probably, college. Just never got around to seeing it. The movie is famous for it's plot of "woman posing as a man presenting as a female impersonator (re: Drag Queen)", but you hear little else about it. It had no radio hits from the songs and hadn't really permeated the culture the way many-a-musical will.
Watched: 12/26/2019
Format: BluRay (Warner Archive)
Viewing: Unknown
Decade: 1930's
I finally got around to watching my new Thin Man (1934) bluray from Warner Archive. I won't talk about the movie's plot, because I've done that a few times. Also, it's one of the most famous movies that ever was, so if you don't know about it or haven't seen it - well, you're bad at movies. No, I'm not kidding or taking that back.
So why did I buy this movie? Again? Well, I'd heard the transfer and restoration were really good - and even if you enjoy the hell out of The Thin Man, sometimes the print or transfer could look a bit rough. The movie is 85 years old. That's gonna happen. But, dang, this BluRay looked phenomenal. And who doesn't want to see Myrna Loy kinda glow even more? See her in even more detail?
We could or should have easily covered this movie for our "Holiday Adjacent" podcasts, but did not. Maybe next year? It'd be fun to talk about this movie for a long time while Day Drinking.
Watched: 12/24/2019
Format: Rifftrax
Viewing: God. Too many.
Decade: 1980's
For longtime readers of the League of Melbotis and Signal Watch blogs, you will know that the 1987 sci-fi opus, R.O.T.O.R., holds a special place in my heart. I first stumbled across the movie on late-night basic cable, and every few years I revisit the film, and, like any fine piece of art, find new things to appreciate and enjoy.
This Christmas Eve, Doug and I chose to punish ourselves by re-watching this movie, but this viewing was enhanced with the power of RiffTrax, some of the same fine fellows who you may know from their work on Mystery Science Theater 3000. And, I am, of course delighted to have the help as I'm watching the movie.
Look, I love a movie that leads to more questions than answers as the thing plugs along, and that's ROTOR in a nutshell. The movie is a phenomenal collection of odd-ball movie cliches, dialog tics, generic Texas racism, inevitable dashes of pretension, unexplored but tedious romance, and 1980's non-union talent. The plotting/ pacing is wild, and an amazingly inept filmmaking on a budget. That the movie was finished seems like an act of sheer will and a sort of bright-eyed Hollywood dream backed by nothing but wantin'-to-put-on-a-show that can make for some of the brightest spots in movie-dom.
RoboCop managed to spawn a *lot* of bad knock-offs. It's not actually clear this was one of them as both films came out in 1987. But who knows? There was just something magical in the air of Dallas, where both were shot!, that produced futuristic policing cyborg movies, I guess.
