Boris Karloff, born this day, 1887.
He would have been 44-45 when he played the Monster for the first time.
Film. Comics. Sci-Fi. Superheroes. Pulp. Noir. History. Superman. 20th Century Archaeology.
Monday, November 23, 2020
90's Watch: Dogfight (1991)
Watched: 11/22/2020
Format: TCM on DVR
Viewing: 3rd or 4th
Decade: 1990's
Director: Nancy Savoca
I rented this one in high school, but I have no idea why. I'm pretty sure the first time I watched it, I watched it by myself. But I know I watched it the next day before I had to return it, with someone. Probably my brother or a friend. And maybe I watched it once in college, but the movie doesn't get discussed much and I'm not sure what sort of footprint it had or has.
TCM has been on a tear promoting women in film - behind the lens, mostly. I'm afraid I've done a very bad job of keeping up with their terrific efforts. Dogfight (1991) was shown as part of an evening's programming some time ago, and I hadn't had a chance to watch it, but finally did. I'm surprised how much of the movie I remembered (there are movies I'll watch, and look at the blog in the same year and have to piece together what it was as I have almost no memory of the film already), but also what an impact the movie had on me at the time as a young dude.
Sunday, November 22, 2020
PODCAST: "Robin and Marian" (1976) - a Connery Tribute PodCast w/ SimonUK and Ryan
Watched: 11/01/2020
Format: Amazon Streaming
Viewing: Second
Decade: 1970's
Director: Richard Lester
The Signal Watch is sad we've lost a film icon in Sean Connery, so SimonUK and yours truly check out one of Connery's less discussed but curiously interesting films - where he plays a middle-aged Robin Hood returning to Sherwood Forest after 20 years away. A meditation on legends, aging, love, what drives us and what we hang onto.
Music
Robin and Marian Suite - John Barry
Watch Party Watch: Masters of the Universe (1987)
Watched: 11/20/2020
Format: Amazon Watch Party
Viewing: Unknown
Decade: 1980's
Director: Gary Goddard
I should start by saying: I didn't ever really like He-Man and the Masters of the Universe as toyline, cartoon, what-have-you. Maybe because a lot of the material behind the franchise is simply bad. The Filmation cartoon was goofily animated and the voice actors always sounded like they were recording out of context and in a well-tiled bathroom. It featured a handful of wildly annoying characters and artists who really wanted to work in a few rotoscoped shots as often as possible. (I will say - it DID blend American comic book style art very well, and should have shown Marvel how to do this instead of what they did in the 1990's.) But mostly, He-Man was a lot of nonsense to sell toys, and that's great. I support that idea. I just wasn't into their particular gumbo of elements that made up their cartoon and toys (and found the original line of toys frankly grotesque, and not in a fun way).
Fake Doc Watch: Waiting for Guffman (1996)
Watched: 11/14/2020
Format: DVD
Viewing: Unknown
Decade: 1990's
Director: Christopher Guest
For a run of about five movies, Christopher Guest managed to borrow the "mockumentary" format pioneered with Spinal Tap (in which he famously costars), and managed to create some Gen-X favorites. The run began with Waiting for Guffman (1996), a "doc" following the production of a pageant/ play intended to celebrate the sesquicentennial of a small, Missouri town, Blaine, the participants of which believe will be seen by an agent of a Broadway producer - elevating their joy at just participating in a local stage show to the chance for something beyond their wildest dreams.
Guest's ensemble would continue on with him through all five films, into his HBO show Family Tree, and into the attempt to recapture the magic with Mascots in 2016. This film includes talent that was breaking at the time, established talent, and helped to establish some of the cast.
Friday, November 20, 2020
Friday Watch Party: Masters of the Universe (1987)
Day: Friday 11/20/2020
Time: 8:30 PM Central
So, this movie kinda took down Cannon Films. It's an adaptation of a popular toy line and cartoon, and decided to appeal to no one by changing the location, characters and looks of the characters. But it does feature an early appearance of Courtney Cox and a "is this stardom?" era Dolph Lundgren, and a Frank Langella having the time of his life.
The movie is garbage, but it does have Meg Foster as evil enchantress/ excellent-eyes-haver Evil Lyn. And that ain't all bad.
Next week - if it's still on Prime - we're doing Working Girl. I'll be rooting for Sigourney Weaver.
Thursday, November 19, 2020
Spooky Noir Watch: The Seventh Victim (1943)
Watched: 11/18/2020
Format: Noir Alley on DVR
Viewing: First
Decade: 1940's
Director: Mark Robson
A Val Lewton horror film - that means a lot of atmosphere, mystery, wild plotting and not a lot of blood or outright frights - The Seventh Victim (1943) is a study in building a sense of dread and doom. It's a strange, strange film, following one lead character for much of the film before putting her in a corner and finding other characters more interesting to watch.
The film marks the movie debut of Kim Hunter*, who plays a private school girl who learns her bills aren't being paid by her sister - and her sister seems to have disappeared. She hits the big city and learns her sister has sold the cosmetics company she owned, her shrink hasn't seen her in a bit, and she was romantically hooked up with Ward Cleaver (see a young Hugh Beaumont as a sort of romantic character!).
Seems her sister fell in with a bunch of devil worshippers, and that's no gone great. In fact, when paired with a private eye who decides to do the work pro bono, he gets bumped off. At some point, we find the sister, and she's on a path that none of the men around her quite understand as they try to save her.
But, I'm selling the film short. Being a Lewton produced film, it's all about ideas and what you can't see in the shadows. There's a Lynchian dream-like quality to portions, and the horror of what you realize must be happening (from people getting away with murder right in front of you) to rooms full of people trying to talk you into suicide that's far weirder than any makeup or jump scares. Really, the closest thing I can think of in a "we're gonna watch someone end badly" closest to this film was Fire Walk With Me.
Included as a Noir Alley entry - it works. The film's aesthetics rely on expressionism, deep shadow, etc... There's certainly a doomed quality and an underworld scratching at the edges of polite society. In this case, an underworld that's what polite society does after 8:00 PM.
*Kim Hunter is much beloved at The Signal Watch as the actor who (a) appeared as Zira in some Planet of the Apes films, and (b) as Stella Kowalski in A Streetcar Named Desire.
PODCAST: "Krampus" (2015) - a XMas Genre Xrossover 2020 Special w/ Marshall and Ryan
Watched: 11/04/2020
Format: HBO, maybe?
Viewing: Second or third
Decade: 2010's
Director: Michael Dougherty
Music:
Krampus Main Theme - Douglas Pipes
Happy 100th, Gene Tierney
Good golly, that Gene Tierney.
Today marks her 100th birthday. She's very, very good in some very good films. I do not have time to Google her for you, but I recommend you check out her work.
Tuesday, November 17, 2020
Interaction Watch: For a Few Dollars More (1965)
Watched: 11/10/2020
Format: Amazon Watch Party
Viewing: Unknown. Probably fourth or fifth
Decade: 1960's
Director: Sergio Leone
It had been maybe 15 years since I last watched For a Few Dollars More (1965), the second in the Man With No Name trilogy, which catapulted Clint Eastwood to stardom, made Leone an unlikely star director, and gave me some movies to be blown away by in my last teens/ early 20's.
It's an interesting bridge between the solo adventure of a Fistful of Dollars, which is also maybe a bit rougher from a technical standpoint, and the groundbreaking filmmaking that would come with The Good, The Bad and The Ugly and explode into masterpiece filmmaking with Once Upon a Time in the West.
I may like Leone's work. Sue me.
The film isn't *that* different to characters and bears from A Fistful of Dollars, but it does insert Lee Van Cleef as the variable in the experiment, and to great effect. It's not hard to track how Leone went from this film to the three character structure of The Good, The Bad and The Ugly in the next film, giving chances for shifting alliances based on the character's self interests and motivations. Flashbacks in this film presage similar from the finale from OUATITW.
It's a gorgeous film, and the pacing and characters are happily breaking the conventions of Westerns of the prior 60 years of film, pointing the way for what we would come to expect from an American action film. To the point that, with no knowledge of film history, what people coming to this movie for the first time would even think. But this is 1965 - we're barely two steps from Hopalong Cassidy, chronologically.
If you think you don't like westerns (a statement I think just basically means: I don't like movies about people without cars, as "western" is a nonsense category of a movie), give the Man With No Name Trilogy a shot. It's amazing stuff.
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