Watched: 11/29/2020
Format: Disney+
Viewing: Unknown
Decade: 1990's
Director: Brian Henson
Music - Muppet Christmas Carol OST
Scrooge - Paul Williams
When Love is Gone - Paul Williams
Playlist - Xmas Genre Xrossover 2020
Film. Comics. Sci-Fi. Superheroes. Pulp. Noir. History. Superman. 20th Century Archaeology.
Monday, December 14, 2020
PODCAST: "A Muppet Christmas Carol" (1992) - a Xmas Genre Xrossover w/ Stuart & Ryan
Music - Muppet Christmas Carol OST
Playlist - Xmas Genre Xrossover 2020
Watch Party Watch: Blood Beat (1983)
Watched: 12/11/2020
Format: Amazon Watch Party
Viewing: First
Decade: 1980's
Director: Fabrice-Ange Zaphiratos
Sometimes you watch a movie that is so off the rails, the batshit-ness gains its own power.
I *think* I basically get what occurred during Bloodbeat (aka: Blood Beat) (1983), but I am willing to hear any interpretation of events which unfold in the film.
A woman living in rural Wisconsin welcomes home her kids from college for Christmas. Her son has brought his girlfriend, unannounced. NBD, but the mom is also on the skids with her rednecky live-in boyfriend, and she's a painter and psychic. Sort of. And she gets a weird vibe from the girlfriend.
The girlfriend also hits a psychic tripwire upon arriving, so... They all go hunting. The girlfriend does not like.
A samurai ghost shows up when the girlfriend is sexually aroused. And the sister seems unable to get an outfit together that makes any sense.
Anyway - the samurai ghost kills the neighbors who try to put too many things on a waterbed.
There's a psychic battle, stock footage of nuclear blasts, and some light nudity. It all feels like a one off issue of X-Men circa 1984.
I genuinely enjoyed this thing. DIdn't know where it was going from moment to moment, and was both just confusing and concrete enough to stick with for the 90 minute runtime. Not a technical marvel, but it had a certain je ne sais quoi.
Merry Christmas.
Sunday, December 13, 2020
Watch Party Watch: "I, The Jury" (1953)
Format: Amazon Watch Party
Viewing: First
Decade: 1950's
Director: Harry Essex
There was a time before Mickey Spillane was a name everyone kind of knew, and before Mike Hammer books had been adapted by major studios. I, the Jury is one of the first Hammer books, released in 1947. This poverty row movie adaptation came out in 1953 - and it really isn't like anything else coming out at the time.
Yeah, the acting in this film wasn't going to threaten the usual Oscar contenders, and at first blush, there's a lot of what you might have seen in a Marlowe mystery - but (a) this case starts personal and finishes even more so for our detective, and (b) this detective is going to punch his way through the mystery.
Where Marlowe tries to keep his cool, often over the top of rage whichs pills over, Hammer starts at a ten and goes up from there. When your mystery starts with a dead best friend and you're on the trail through a bunch of weirdos - any of whom could have done it - I guess I can see how you'd be testy.
Star Biff Elliot who plays Hammer is a curious choice. He's not the stringest actor and his decision to go "angry" in every scene means that there's nowhere to go, really. He blasts into the frame the first time we see him, and barges into every room thereafter - so we don't ever really see him in any other state. And anger is an easy go-to for actors, but it's hard to maintain.
The rest of the cast is actually pretty solid. Peggie Castle as a love interest/ psychologist and Margaret Sheridan as Velda are both pretty great. And Frances Osborne - who I'd only seen elsewhere in Murder By Contract - was very good as the mourning girlfriend of the murder victim.
I discussed Spillane's semi-controversial place in crime-fiction, and this movie doesn't do much to dismiss the notion. It's got as gritty a crime and violence angle, adjacent to overt sexuality as anything I can think of from this era - but still coded deeply enough that it was going to fly past the censors. But, man, that ending is something else for the era.
The film was shot by John Alton, who always makes any picture look far better than it has a right to look - and I'd argue this movie had a huge impact on Frank Miller and his Sin City look and feel, from the deep shadow and windy mystery to the cinch in Hammer's raincoat.
Friday, December 11, 2020
Friday Watch Party for 12/11/2020 - "Blood Beat" - I swear it's a Christmas movie
- Day: 12/11/2020
- Time: 8:30 Central
I swear this is a Christmas film.
I got nothing else to say.
Thursday, December 10, 2020
Noir (on Ice!) Watch: Suspense (1946)
Format: Noir Alley on TCM
Viewing: First
Decade: 1940's
Director: Frank Tuttle
Jamie is not averse to noir, but I watch most of these by myself. However, when I pitched her "it's a noir with figure skating as a key component", she was in. She loves her some figure skating.
This is the third Belita-starring film shown on TCM's Noir Alley - and I'd guess the last. She just didn't make many movies, let alone moody crime films. I totally get why Eddie seems to have a soft spot for her - she's not exactly a powerhouse actress, but she does have a certain charm stemming from her own surprise at being in movies.
I'm mostly familiar with the King Brothers - producers on this one - from their movie Gun Crazy, part of my personal canon. This was a follow up, and Monogram (who I mostly think of as having sets that look like high school play sets) upped the budget and talent. Barry Sullivan stars as a hoodlum who lucks his way into a low level job at an ice-capades-type-show, and then parlays that into swiftly moving up the ranks as an ideas man - so they keep the ice show fresh and bring people back.
I mean - his big idea is a sort of oval full of swords that any film masters' student would have a field day figuring the Freudian messaging of, and doesn't seem like something any insurance company would okay - but whatevs. Because Belita actually DOES the jump between the swords.
Anyway, she's the wife of the older, mustachioed boss, and of course she feels an attraction to Barry Sullivan (because the script says to - he's not exactly Mitchum).
Death, gunplay, avalanches, a cute dog and more figure skting figure in. Plus, a scheming ex girlfriend and Eugene Pallette, the best Grumpy Gus in movies.
It wasn't anything earth shattering, but I was pretty okay with it. It can be hard to find a noir that Jamie wants to sit through, and I did it! She was A-OK with this one. But I don't think it will be easy finding more with ice skating.
Tuesday, December 8, 2020
Disney+ Watch: Godmothered (2020)
Format: Disney+
Viewing: First
Decade: 2020's
Director: Sharon Maguire
Definitely a "fun for the whole family" all-ages offering from Disney+, Godmothered (2020) has a semi-complicated set-up that melts into a fairly standard magical comedy, but which I think more or less works, even if it's not exactly ground-breaking.
Apparently Fairy Godmothers come from The Motherland, a mystical realm where fairies train for seemingly centuries before being sent out on assignment. But the trick is - no one has asked for help from a Fairy Godmother in centuries, and there's only really been one new fairy to sign up for the gig in the past few decades. And so - they're maybe going to shut it all down (the Motherland is run by Jane Curtain, who appears to be having fun).
PODCAST: "Anna and the Apocalypse" (2017) - a Xmas Genre Xrossover 2020 episode w/ SimonUK and Ryan
Watched: 11/21/2020
Format: Amazon Streaming
Viewing: First
Decade: 2010's
Director: John McPhail
Christmas Means Nothing Without You - Roddy Hart, Tommy Reilly
Hollywood Ending - Roddy Hart, Tommy Reilly
Xmas Genre Xrossover Playlist
Monday, December 7, 2020
Chuck Yeager has merged with The Infinite
When I was eight years old, my dad took the family to see The Right Stuff. I was a spacey little kid interested in Star Wars and fantasy, but we also were read stories of real-life heroes, from Jackie Robinson to Benjamin Franklin to Louis Pasteur. I couldn't remember a time when I hadn't known about my father's interest in aviation and NASA. We lived less than 90 minutes from the Johnson Space Center, and visited frequently.
But by 1983, the names of the Mercury mission crew were no longer household names. Let alone Chuck Yeager. But as much as I admired those Mercury astronauts, and somehow got my head around what the movie was doing at age 8 - I think the person my brother and I asked about the most afterward was Chuck Yeager.
My idea of who Yeager is will forever be enmeshed with the portrayal of Yeager by Sam Shepard on the big screen (oddly and sadly, Shepard died before Yeager, passing a few years back). When I think of the heroes of post-WWII America, it's hard for me to not to put the idea of Chuck Yeager strapping himself into jet after jet and surviving, including that day when he got in the Bell X1. Ignoring the very real possibility of death, he pushed boundaries willingly - gladly, in fact. In a small, strange rocket with his wife's name painted on the nose.
I've read articles about him, seen him interviewed, and followed him on social media when he participated for a while. The first thing I look for at the Smithsonian is always the X1. The carefully crafted myth-making of cinema is just that - it's not who the man was, even when it is very much what he was and what he did.
I'm glad he lived long enough to see himself become a legend, and a hallmark of American grit and courage. I'm fine with Yeager being more myth than real in my mind.
Sunday, December 6, 2020
Noir Watch: Kiss Me Deadly (1955)
Watched: 12/6/2020
Format: TCM on Noir Alley
Viewing: third?
Decade: 1950's
Director: Robert Aldrich
Mickey Spillane is a weird sell in crime and noir circles. I've never read any of his books (I'm fixing that ASAP), but the general idea is that his detective novels featuring Mike Hammer are (more) sexist (than other noir) and sadistic. That's spilled over to the Mike Hammer films and other media, most of which I haven't seen or paid much attention to - but Kiss Me Deadly (1955) is a @#$%ing crazy movie, and you should check it out sometime.
Christmas Watch: Christmas Chronicles 2
Format: Netflix
Viewing: First
Decade: 2020's
Director: Christopher Columbus
Look, I polished off at least 3/4ths of a bottle of wine while watching this, but it seemed great at the time - both the wine and the movie.
Stuart had vouched for the first Christmas Chronicles back in 2018, and it was genuinely much better than I figured. Kurt Russell as Santa is just a good idea. The Christmas Chronicles 2 ups the budget, expands the concepts, and adds Goldie Hawn as Mrs. Claus. And, again, it just works. I'll refer you to the link above for what I think this series does that makes it a cut above 90% of the "Santa" genre of movies of the past 20 years or so.*
This installment, of what I assume will be a once per two years thing for a while, sees Kate Pierce from the first movie in Cancun with her mom and brother from the first film. Mom is now dating Tyrese Gibson, who flew everyone down - but Kate has understandable feelings about (a) not being home for Christmas and (b) fears of Mom forgetting Dad (who had passed before the first movie). Now, the set-up on this one is... a bit wonky. I don't see even the drunkest parents leaving their under-18 kids alone in Mexico for 24 hours, especially one as sensitive as Tyrese's son, Jack.
But an elf-gone-bad has set the whole thing up, and he hi-jacks Kate and Jack to the North Pole so he can use them as a distraction to get into Santa's Village and EXACT ELF REVENGE.
The movie splits into Jack learning he can be courageous (he's a bit of a wiener at the film's outset), and works through Kate's far more complex situation with the power of Christmas multiplied by the power of time travel.
This film builds on the terrific design from the first film - giving us a wider view into Santa's village and the workshops contained therein. I dig the scale and decision to roughly ground things - the elves (which look like Finnish Magwai) kind of scuttling around everywhere, but not living inside cupcakes or anything. It looks weirdly practical, and I very much enjoyed the "let me check my biases" moment as the kids ask why the village isn't named after Mrs. Claus, credited with the design of the town.
Goldie Hawn as Mrs. Claus is, honestly, as much of a kick as Russell as Santa. It does not hurt to have two people with decades of cohabitation together playing a couple of several hundred years, but Hawn's sunny disposition and capacity for indicating depths with a glance is well served here in telling the adult audience a lot that might be going over the kid audience's heads.
The kid actors aren't threatening anyone to nab Oscar nomination slots, but Columbus is no slouch when handling kids, and between a good script and getting the most out of his kid actors, he manages to also let Kate have moments of growth and insight - non-verbally! She, like, listens and processes and does not have to say out loud what she's learning at each step.
But, yeah, this isn't a heavy drama or anything. There's plenty of goofy good stuff. You can't go wrong with Darlene Love showing up to join in the requisite Santa musical number (I think Jamie heard me gasp when she first appeared for what I assumed was a cameo).
It's just weird how far we lower the bar for Christmas content that anything remotely competent (this *is* Chris Columbus, who brought us Harry Potter, Home Alone, etc...) and isn't just indicating what they would like to convey, but actually delivering those messages like a real movie comes off like Avengers: Endgame.
PS: I found the flying hyenas delightful
*I do like Fred Claus more than you'd figure
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