Happy Birthday, Jean Hagen

TCM social media reminds me today is the birthday of actress Jean Hagen.  

Happy Birthday Myrna Loy

Today would be the 115th birthday of Myrna Loy

Wilford Brimley Merges With The Infinite

Wilford Brimley, a man I think it's safe to say all of us had a multi-faceted fondness for, has passed.

From the NYT.

I can't say how I became aware of Wilford Brimley.  I knew who he was by the time I saw Cocoon in the theater.  Maybe he was doing oatmeal commercials by then.  I can't say.

He was always a lot younger than he looked - he was only 50ish when they filmed Cocoon.  He would have been about 45 when he did The Thing.  One of his craziest coups was playing the Postmaster General of the USPS for about one minute on Seinfeld and doing that thing he'd done in The Firm where Grandpa-is-low-key-threatening-me that was bizarrely terrifying.

The last few years, Brimley discovered twitter and was hilarious and a cheerful spot.

Watch Party Watch: Psychomania (1973)

Watched:  07/31/2020
Format:  Amazon Watch Party
Viewing:  Second
Decade: 1970's
Director: Don Sharp

SimonUK and I already did this one as a PodCast.  Check it out.

The Signal Watch PodCast · 023: "Psychomania" - Halloween 2018 Ep. 1 w/ SimonUK and Ryan

Friday Amazon Watch Party: PSYCHOMANIA

I've suffered through this movie, and now you should too.

It's "Psychomania" - a movie British people love and Americans will find baffling.

The leader of a biker gang in a small, British municipality makes a deal with the devil for power or immortality or both (I can't remember) and returns to life to wreak havoc.  And by havoc, I mean - kind of upsetting old ladies and people on ladders.

The final film of famed actor George Sanders, this one plays with life, death, and life again.  And frogs.  and motorcycles.  And very, very bad music.

Day:  Friday 07/31/2020
Time:  8:30 Central
Amazon Watch Party (link here)

Happy 80th Birthday, Bugs Bunny!

in which I argue this is a hero of the people

Because parents are now largely concerned their children will experience any joy that doesn't have bumpers on it,* I don't think kids really know about Bugs Bunny.  Which is a shame.

Being a 1980's latchkey kid who had a Zenith for a babysitter, like most of my generation, I had WB cartoons blasted at me day and night for my entire youth.  From my earliest memories straight through college, Looney Tunes were not just a staple, but a constant.  In a way, the cheap programming of a thousand UHF channels and basic cable options may be the truest common denominator for 2-3 decades of Americans.  All of us know "Rabbit Season/ Duck Season".  We all know the weird, hilarious poetic tragedy of Michigan J. Frog and those who find him.  We all know the best thing to do when pursued is to dress as a coquettish young blonde and flirt with our pursuer.

It's printed on our DNA.

Olivia de Havilland Merges with The Infinite

Olivia de Havilland has passed at the age of 104. 

With an astounding career that spanned the Golden Age of Hollywood into the post-studio system Hollywood, Olivia de Havilland was the last, living player from some of the great pictures of the early sound era.  She was in Gone with the Wind, but I prefer her and the movie of The Adventures of Robin Hood, in which she co-starred as Maid Marian. 

Just last week, during my lunch break, I watched her in part of Hush, Hush, Sweet Charlotte.

She had remarked in her last decades that being one of the last living actors from a bygone era of Hollywood was like being from a place no one else could remember.  That always struck me as remarkably sad.

She'd lived in France for the past six decades, returning to the US for various events and film roles. 

Here's to a grand actress.

Regis Philbin Merges with The Infinite

How odd.  I always thought of Regis Philbin as.. a permanent fixture.  He'd seemed sort of ageless all his years on TV. 

But he seems to have passed. 

For the kids - Regis was a sort of gadfly of the media industry who had his greatest success with "Regis and Kathie Lee" back in the 90's, a softball morning show where he drank coffee and met celebrities and clearly had no idea who they were or what they were pitching.  He was a great default guest for late-night talk shows (I always suspected he was on speed dial when they had a cancellation) because he'd been a sort of Jiminy Glick for so long that he had tons of crazy stories. 

Anyway, he was someone I always found pretty funny.  He had a certain joie de vivre that made him a kick to have on.  And, when he hosted the game show, Who Wants to be a Millionaire?, our own Nathan Cone got to meet him as a contestant. 

Bruce Watch: Fist of Fury (1972)

Watched:  07/25/2020
Format:  Criterion BluRay
Viewing:  First
Decade:  1970's
Director:  Wei Lo

So, if the *last* Bruce Lee movie I watched I wondered "hey, why didn't they use more of the snow cone girl?" - friends, I have learned that is Nora Miao, and I was not the only one who thought she should get more screentime.  Here she plays the childhood sweetheart of Bruce Lee's Chen Zhen, and she appears in a few of Bruce Lee's big-name movies.

First, I loved Fist of Fury (1972).  Great story, interesting character arc, complex scenarios and amazing fight scenes.  Nothing to not like.  I don't know if the film had a much higher budget than The Big Boss, but it just *looks* better than the prior film, and the story is infinitely tighter.

The story will feel a bit familiar to those of us who've seen Fist of Legend (which you should 100% see), and I'm unclear if this movie is based on a true story of any kind.  I don't think so, but... the movie says it does?

When a Master of a martial arts school dies under mysterious circumstances, his star pupil, a passionate young Bruce Lee, returns to Shanghai to mourn - and, once he's clicked to the fact the death made no sense - seek out justice.  The story takes place in The Settlement, something I had to look up, an international portion of Shanghai that has a fascinating history.

The Japanese come to the funeral for the Master and basically bully multiple schools at once, knowing that the Chinese can't push back.  Except for Chen Zhen, who comes to the Japanese dojo and kicks the living crap out of *everyone* in a dynamic fight sequence.  However, this leads to retribution on several fronts and an impossible situation for Chen Zhen's school.

Bruce realizes this was the girl selling shave-ice in the last movie

At the heart of the film is Chen Zhen's romance with Nora Miao, and their interrupted dreams of settling down and running a martial-arts school, and the opportunity for Lee to do some dramatic acting alongside his angry-young-man work.

Anyway - shocker, this is a good Bruce Lee film.

Happy Byrthday Lynda Carter

Happy birthday to Ms. Carter!  May it be a wonder-ful b-day for our own Amazing Amazon and Princess of Themyscira!

reigning supreme at the Met Gala in 2018!