FRIDAY NIGHT Tweet Along: "The Shadow" - 1994! JOIN US

Who knows what evil lurks in the hearts of men?  The Shadow!  He's perfectly aware that the weed of crime bears bitter fruit, and he's here to clean up New York City!  Alongside his network of trusted assistants, The Shadow lives a dual life as Lamont Cranston, millionaire playboy - but at night, hunts the wicked men of the city!

Location:  Twitter
Day:  04/10/2020
Time:  8:00 Central
Watch on Amazon Streaming:  https://www.amazon.com/Shadow-Alec-Baldwin/dp/B002CSR45W
Our Twitter Hashtag:  #bitterfruit

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It's 1994!  Marvel was still making straight-to-TV and video movies in the mid-90's, DC was pumping out increasingly iffy Batmans, and studio heads were greenlighting the costumed heroes of their youths.  In an era before X-Men, Spider-Man and Iron Man reset what we thought of as superhero entertainment, we got some pretty interesting stuff!

Starring Alec Baldwin, Penelope Ann Miller, John Lone, Ian McKellan, Jonathan Winters, Tim Curry, Peter Boyle - and more! 

It's a Post-Batman splurge into the pulp world that spawned the very idea of comic book superheroes!  Delve into the 1990's grappling with early 20th century takes on Eastern Mysticism!  Watch Alec Baldwin try not to be handsome!  Behold: Penelope Ann Miller!

I had forgotten Taylor Dayne had a single supporting the film! Here's the video - which contains scenes from the film and Ms. Dayne herself.

In a Time of Virus: Days With No Meaning

I'm not writing these posts so much for all of us going through this *now*.   When this is over, I'd like to remember what...  happened.  Because, like any trauma, we're going to collectively want to block this out.  And what there is to remember will be so vague and weird, and our timelines will be skewed.

We all kind of laugh about how days lose all meaning in that period between Christmas and New Year.  At least once a day, someone will ask "what day is it?" and sometimes you may have to think about it.  With nowhere to be, no one looking for you and the weekends looking like a weekday, it takes no time at all.  And while we have weekends, when you're looking at the same walls and people, days do sort of lose their meaning.  Last week on Friday, I had to be told at least once it wasn't Thursday.

Disney Watch: Timmy Failure - Mistakes Were Made (2020)

Watched:  04/04/2020
Viewing:  First
Format:  Disney+
Decade:  2020's
Director: Tom McCarthy


My guess is that you're sleeping on Timmy Failure: Mistakes Were Made (2020).  This would be a mistake.  This will be one of the finest movies you could watch this year.

Honor Blackman Has Merged With The Infinite

Honor Blackman, who starred in Goldfinger and on TV's The Avengers has passed at the age of 94.

For me, Blackman sets the bar for all "Bond Girls", up to and including Diana Rigg and Eva Green, and remains my favorite (she literally saves thousands of lives in Goldfinger while Bond is in jail).  Look, Blackman was a stone cold fox who could make a white pantsuit sing, but she also plays the role of Pussy Galore to perfection.  She's among the few female costars who ever gave a Bond a run of their money, and there's a reason (beyond the colorful name) that she's remembered so well 50-odd years later.

It was always great to know she was out there, and she'll be missed.

I mean, purple works, too

You can hear me wax rhapsodic about Pussy Galore on our Goldfinger podcast.

Noir Watch: I Wake Up Screaming (1941)

Watched:  04/05/2020
Format:  Noir Alley on TCM on BluRay
Viewing:  3rd or 4th
Decade:  1940's
Director: H. Bruce Humberstone

I'd already seen this, so I wasn't going to watch it, but I've been on a Victor Mature kick lately, and Laird Cregar is so damn good in this movie I wanted to at least watch his scenes.  I also hadn't really contextualized I Wake Up Screaming (1941) in the timeline of the noir movement, and it's crazy to see a movie that so thoroughly *already* has down the noir style visually when the form was just getting started. 

Victor Mature is a little cagey

Kaiju Watch: Godzilla vs. Mechagodzilla (1974) AND Terror of Mechagodzilla (1975)

Watched:  04/01/2020 and 04/03/2020
Format:  BluRay
Viewing:  Second?  First as an adult
Decade:  1970's

Frankly, on top of and due to Coronavirus happenings, work has been a bear, and - thus - in the evenings I've mostly just been looking for something *fun* when I peel myself out of my office chair and mosey down to the living room.   For some time, my Criterion Godzilla set has been calling to me from the bookshelf, so we finally broke into it a while back and started watching some Kaiju Kraziness.

PODCAST: "Streets of Fire" (1984) - Ryan's Random Cinema w/ Jamie

Watched:  03/14/2020
Format:  BluRay
Viewing:  Unknown
Decade:  1980's


Jamie and Ryan revisit one of Ryan's inexplicably favorite movies, 1984's "Streets of Fire" (which he is well aware is probably not a good movie, but it's somehow a movie he'll always stop to watch). Another time! Another place! It's sorta the retro 1980-50's, a sprawling urban landscape where rock rules and so do dudes in leather gear on motorbikes! But a steely-eyed dude with a high powered rifle and Amy Madigan at his side can save the day AND the cute girl (Diane Lane!)! Adventure! Excitement! Cool cars! Bad bad guys! Rock AND Roll!




Music: 
Nowhere Fast - Fire Inc., Streets of Fire OST
I Can Dream About You - Dan Hartman, Streets of Fire OST
Tonight Is What It Means To Be Young - Fire Inc., Streets of Fire OST

Proto-Super Reboot Watch: Legend of the Lone Ranger (1981)

Watched:  03/30/2020
Format:  Amazon streaming
Viewing:  First
Decade:  1980's

I remember being confused that, in 1981, I was not allowed to see either Legend of the Lone Ranger or Zorro the Gay Blade.   I'd catch Zorro in the summer of 1993 on TV  - summer I graduated high school, and it confirmed what I'd heard from friends at the elementary school lunch table about why I'd not been taken to see a movie about the original superhero.  Legend of the Lone Ranger held a lot more mystery - partially because it was just harder to find and partially because of what little I'd heard.  "It's really violent" I was told.

Action 252 - First Supergirl - Arrived March 31, 1959!

Action 252 is the first appearance of the second time DC floated a super girl,* but it brought Kara Zor-El to Earth, not from a dimensional wormhole or anything like we get in fancy, modern stories, but from a loose chunk of Krypton that was just hurling through space with a city and an atmosphere.

In a Time of Virus: That First Week in Lockdown

We've been in some form of lockdown since March 13th.

In some ways, this hasn't been entirely different from the nearly two years when I worked from home when I was at Northwestern University.  I wake up, I shower, make coffee, eat something and sit down and get to work.  I use my office, which is also my "collection room", ie: The Fortress, which I had decommissioned for work when I went back to UT.

When we were sent home from work, the home office was full of "stuff" all over the floor, making the room unusable.  We'd recently had a remodel of our bathroom, and to make room for the contractors, I'd cleared things and just dumped them in my office and shut the door.  Out of sight, out of mind.  Honestly, what I piled in there was sitting on top of things I hadn't yet cleared away from Christmas, waiting for some time when I'd have some downtime and clean up, which I usually do when we're set to have company.

The first weekend, starting on the 13th, we just sort of blanked out.  There was a run to HEB Saturday morning, buying food for a full week or more.  The store was busy, but not hectic.  Jamie and I put on nitrile gloves before going in - and I never saw anyone else with them on.  No masks.