PODCAST: "Shazam!" (2019) - Xmas Genre Xrossover 2020 w/ AmyC and Ryan

 

Watched:  11/13/2020
Format:  HBO

Viewing:  Second

Decade:  2010's

Director:  David F. Sandberg

For more ways to listen

AmyC and Ryan say the word and find themselves checking out the heroic adventures of one of comics longest-lasting heroes who finally found his way to the big screen. And, it's a Christmas movie! We discuss the comics, the movie and what makes for holiday cinematic magic! 

The Signal Watch PodCast · 130: "Shazam" (2019) XMas Genre Xrossover 2020 w/ AmyC & Ryan

YouTube

Music: 

Shazam! Main Theme - Benjamin Wallfisch

XMas Genre Xrossover 2020  

The Signal Watch PodCast · XMas Genre Xrossover 2020

David Prowse Merges With The Infinite

 

Actor and bodybuilder David Prowse has passed at the age of 85.  

Prowse is most famous for his role as Darth Vader in the original Star Wars trilogy, providing the frame upon which the intimidating Vader outfit was built.  And, of course, performing physical actions - that's him trying to get Luke to join him on Bespin.

We also know Prowse from a few other appearances, including Vampire Circus and A Clockwork Orange.    

Like Mayhew, Daniels and Baker - Prowse was still able to receive recognition for his work despite never having his face revealed.  He embraced his role as Vader during filming as well as the decades since.  

I am very sorry he has passed - he provided some of my earliest and fondest memories of modern mythologies.

Noir Watch: Fear (1946)

Watched:  11/28/2020

Format:  Noir Alley on TCM on DVR

Viewing:  First

Decade:  1940's

Director:  Alfred Zeisler

An adaptation of Dostoevsky's Crime and Punishment, which I have never read (and I suspect few of you have, either) - and boiled down to a tight 65 minute crime thriller, Fear (1946) is a low-budget predecessor to a movie plot you've seen a dozen times over.  

Basically - upstanding guy commits crime, no one suspects him, and then a cop starts trailing him.  Meanwhile he meets a comely young lass.  

It's not actually that baaaaad.  It's just totally hamstrung by the cardboard sets and that they obviously had about 3 set-ups per scene per set.  If that.  Honestly, the acting is fine.  And the movie is short enough that you're in and out before you even get a chance to start pondering the movie's issues too much.

Anyway - not exactly something I'd recommend.  It feels more like a jot of an idea than an actual film.  But I've seen way worse, and the set-up kept me curious how they'd shake it out.

Watch Party Watch: Working Girl (1988)

Watched:  11/27/2020

Format:  Amazon Watch Party

Viewing:  Second, I think

Decade:  so, so 1980's

Director:  Mike Nichols (checks notes) huh.

When Working Girl hit theaters in 1989, I remember it was one of those movies everyone saw - both parents and kids.  A lot of kids with their parents.  It had the gloss on New York City business and the glamour that suggested in the late 1980's as being a part of the high stakes world of business at the heart of American capitalism after eight years of Reaganomics was the pinnacle of success - and a lot of pop culture flowed forth from that.  Right up to and including movies like this, Gremlins 2 and the novel of American Psycho.*

Dolly Watch: Christmas on the Square (2020)

Watched:  11/26/2020

Format:  Netflix

Viewing:  First

Decade:  2020's

Director:  Debbie Allen, y'all

I don't know if you guys know this, but the past few years Dolly Parton has been producing a variety of movies - including a few which appeared on Netflix last year.  My memory is that prior movies were basically using ideas from one of her more popular tunes (I actually watched a good chunk of Jolene, but think I forgot to write it up).  But I think Christmas on the Square (2020) is based on a new song from her recently released album (a solid Christmas record, if you're so inclined).  

This was very much a movie musical - relentlessly so - and intended to give everyone's mother something to watch this Christmas that they could casually mention that they had seen - and then recommend.  Directed and produced by the great Debbie Allen, it's not really a surprise the movie features singers and dancers trying their hearts out, and the film is packed with folks with plenty of talent madly dancing and singing around our leads.

Friday Amazon Watch Party: Working Girl

 

Day:  11/27/2020

Time:  8:30 Central

Link for viewing

My memory of this movie is that it's about a highly competent Sigourney Weaver who gets into an accident and her secretary schemes against her in her absence.  It's a tragedy of sorts.  Melanie Griffith, the secretary, even manages to woo away her supervisor's love interest, Harrison Ford.  

Anyway - we're watching it.  FRIDAY.

Thanksgiving 2020

Hey, y'all!

Well, yeah.  This Thanksgiving was weird, but good.  

First - I am thankful for Jamie and how much she looks after me and Scout and everyone else in general, but in COVID times, she's been extra great.  We're now however many months into this mess and she's been both dealing well with having to live with me and has been entirely key to me keeping an even keel throughout.

I'm thankful for a solid job that is unlike to see much damage as the situation around us remains fluid.  It can be crazy, but it's a challenge I am growing to appreciate more all the time.

We live in town with much of our small family, and I'm thankful we're doing well, and I can see people (socially distanced) even if high-fives and hugs are harder to come by.  We've got a solid support system here locally and in California, and that doesn't hurt.

And, of course, I'm grateful for all you knuckleheads who have made COVID-times bearable by staying in touch, co-producing podcasts, reading the blog, and doing Tuesday and Friday movie nights.  It's a heck of a thing that there's a network from New York to San Francisco and Seattle and back again through the midwest, Kansas City and onward to North Carolina and Tennessee.  Y'all are everywhere, and it's alarming.

TASTE TEST: Brach's Turkey Dinner Candy Corn Assortment

The much referred to Jones Soda Christmas Dinner Taste Test

Taste Tests at 

• The League of Melbotis
• Troubles McSteans
• Signal Watch 

Today is the 100th Birthday of Noel Neill

Today is the 100th birthday of the late Noel Neill, the original live-action Lois Lane.  

Neill mostly famously played Lois Lane for five seasons of The Adventures of Superman alongside actor George Reeves.

Neill was active on the convention circuits and became a fixture at the Metropolis, Illinois Superman Celebration each summer until her very last years.  

Whodunnit Watch: Knives Out (2019)

Watched:  11/21/2020
Format:  Amazon Prime Streaming
Viewing:  Second
Decade:  2010's
Director:  Rian Johnson

Rian Johnson is one of those directors we need more of.  He's smarter than his audience (sorry, he is), and he's making stuff he'd want to see, and if we happen to come along and like it, too, great.  If not, it doesn't matter.  He made something *interesting*.  

On the heels of his stupidly controversial gigantic Star Wars movie that followed his usual way of doing things and managed to make maybe the only interesting Star Wars movie since Empire, he turned to the all-star murder mystery - a la Inspector Poirot films.  But not a murder mystery that relied on nostalgia, an exotic setting and romantic period in which the film occurs.  It's a family all brimming with motivations to take out the patriarch as they gather in the family a mansion in a wealthy Massachusetts suburb.