Christmas Watch Parties! - Every Week - a Gift to Unwrap!

 

December brings us the merriest season of all!  I hope you've got your peppermint sticks and twinkly lights!

On the first three Fridays of December, we'll hold a Christmas watch party!  And much like receiving a gift under the tree, we're going to keep it under wraps til the last minute!  

What will we watch?  I AM NOT TELLING.

But we will enjoy the finest in Christmas offerings!  I would not steer you wrong!*  

When:

• December 3
• December 10
• December 17

Time:  8:30 PM Central

How:

• Amazon Streaming
• Posts will be up by Tuesday each week at http://signal-watch.com or you can check up at the "Watch Party" tab at the top of that page to sort it out and review info about Watch Parties
• We will let you know if the movie will cost anything by Tuesday the week of the screening
• Be festive!

Texas DPS has no time for your jolliness

*this is a lie.  I will drive this bus right off a cliff and take all of you with me.

That Was a Movie Watch: Red Notice (2021)

Watched:  11/17/2021

Format:  Netflix 

Viewing: First

Decade: 2020's

Director:  Rawson Marshall Thurber

I'm *fine* with Ryan Reynolds, Dwayne Johnson and Gal Gadot.  I still watch movies because they star particular talent, but most of those actors have been dead for more than 10 years or way longer, and I guess there's a few people I'd show up to see just because they did a thing.  But it's more likely I'll avoid a movie as long as possible if there are particular actors starring.  None of the three here fall into the "must avoid" category.  They're all... fine.  You know more or less exactly what you'll get, and Red Notice (2021) is not here to blow the door off of those expectations.  

Best case scenario, Red Notice is a fun way to introduce your tween to heist pictures and globe-trotting comedy-action-adventure.  There's a lot of A-Team style bloodless gunplay where no one is ever shot, people crack wise, and it's all a big goof.  It's not a new format, and this one is particularly gentle, so it's a good entry point.   

Oh My God, I'm Old Watch: School of Rock (2003)

Watched:  11/16/2021

Format:  Netflix

Viewing:  3rd?

Decade:  2000's

Director:  Richard Linklater

I still think of this as a new movie, but it came out almost 20 years ago now.  So, that's how time works, kids.  All those adorable moppets are now adults in their 30's.  

School of Rock (2003) is a sweet movie about someone who would absolutely land in an extraordinary amount of legal trouble and have trouble ever finding work again if the events of the film occurred in real life, not to mention taking Joan Cusack down with him.  

I won't summarize, you've all seen the movie or get the basic gist.  

Upon a re-view, I guess I decided that the movie is weirdly and profoundly lazy about its set-up and execution - something that bugged me the first time I saw this and now just feels confusing from a movie from a major studio.

Noir Watch: Detour (1945)

Watched:  11/16/2021

Format:  Amazon Watch Party

Viewing:  Unknown

Decade:  1940's

Director:  Edgar G. Ulmer

Detour (1945) is a bitter, furious bit of pulp noir with no budget, no bankable stars, cardboard sets and a half-assed set-up, and it is absolutely impossible to stop watching once you start.  And, that's at least 85% Ann Savage, who doesn't even show up til the 1/3rd mark.  

It had been a while since I'd watched Detour, but Jenifer selected it for a Tuesday watch party, and I was delighted she did.  I have no idea what spawned this movie or even how it got made.  It doesn't feel like a war-time picture, but it does suggest what would come in the months and years following the war.  It's just lacking the gloss the studios would put on something like this - hard-scrabble talent working off a half-finished script and utterly buyable as drifters and wastrels of pre-War America.  

Noir Watch: The Lineup (1958)

Watched:  11/16/2021

Format:  Noir Alley on TCM

Viewing:  Second or third

Decade:  1950's

Director:  Don Siegel

I had seen The Lineup (1958) years ago, and remembered it was crazy and Eli Wallach was fantastic, but not much else.   It was part of a set of DVD's I was watching in quick secession, and I just didn't get back to it.  Which is too bad, it's a cool crime movie.

Bay Area residents will want to watch it just to see the locations in 1958, some of which are long gone, but most of which are still standing (something Austin would find horrifying.  We knock everything down, willy-nilly.).  As a police procedural in the years after The Naked City, the city itself is more than a backdrop, its geography and environs are crucial and inform everything, from the hook of the plot to the finale car chase.  

Meanwhile, the cast is kind of interesting.  There's the aforementioned Eli Wallach, but he doesn't enter the movie til the 1/3rd mark, along with Robert Keith (who I just learned is the father of Brian Keith) as a pair of heavies/ hit-men in from Miami.  A baby-faced Richard Jaeckel plays their driver hired on by The Man - the mastermind pulling the strings.  Raymond Bailey (Mr. Drysdale from The Beverly Hillbillies) a manager of the San Francisco Opera who is involved in the case and Emile Meyer who seems like he's always a cop plays one of the lead detectives.

Disney+ Watch: Jungle Cruise (2021)

Watched:  11/15/2021

Format:  Disney+

Viewing:  First

Decade:  2020's

Director:  Jaume Collett-Serra

This is part of why it's nice to have Disney+.  

Before COVID, I think maybe I would have talked myself into paying to see Jungle Cruise (2021) in the theater.  I'm partial to Emily Blunt, I more or less like Dwayne Johnson.  The Disney park ride of The Jungle Cruise is a highlight of every trip I've ever had when I hit one of the Disney parks - it's wrapped up in nostalgia, certainly, but it's a fun thing to go do.  

I was a little put off that the jungle cruise of the film was not in Africa, as that would mean no elephants, my childhood favorite part of the ride, but... you know.  It's fine.  

Noir-Vember to Remember Watch Party: The Big Sleep (1946)

Watched:  11/12/2021

Format:  Amazon Watch Party

Viewing:  Unknown

Decade:  1940's

Director:  Howard Hawks

This is literally one of the most written about books and movies of the last century.  Go out there and get nuts reading up on it elsewhere.

Like with the Universal Horror films, I've just been delighted to share these films with the usual gang, some of who've seen these films, some who haven't.  I try not to be a pain interjecting factoids and whatnot, tag-teaming with Jenifer.  It's definitely different watching *good* movies versus campy movies, but everyone's been terrific. 

Noir-Vember Party Watch - FRIDAY: The Big Sleep (1946)

This Friday we take on one of the two most well known DETECTIVE NOIR films.*  This one was originally written by Raymond Chandler, who we saw did scripting work on last week's offering.  The Big Sleep was one of the Philip Marlowe detective novels, with a ton of twists and turns.  

Famously, it wasn't exactly hard to bring to screen, but every once in a while someone on set would ask "wait, why is this happening?" and they'd go to the script, then the book, then call Chandler and he'd be like "I don't remember."  But they made the movie anyway.  

Frankly, I don't know why people find it so complicated.  If you can keep up with the average prestige television shows and all the twists and turns, this really isn't that big of a deal.  But it has its reputation.  

It's also what crime and detective books love to knock off.  If you can find an old, decaying man hiring a detective and there's a goof of a sexpot somehow attached, someone saw this movie or read this book (see: The Big Lebowski).  Personally, I heart this film.  It's Bacall and Bogie having a killer time, plus all the supporting players are fantastic - and it's where a million noiristas decided to love Dorothy Malone for being the most low-key thirsty girl in cinema.

JOIN US.

Day:  Friday - 11/12/2021

Time:  8:30 PM Central/ 6:30 PM Pacific

Service:  Amazon Watch Party

Cost:  $3

CLICK HERE TO JOIN US 

*the other is Maltese Falcon

Supergirl on the CW Ends

I started watching Supergirl from the pilot when the show had big ambitions and was going to air on CBS.  The pilot of the show is... not great.  You could feel the hands of CBS, home to a wide array of boring shows I don't watch, all over the show and kind of wringing themselves with all this superhero weirdness.  But they did bring in a decent cast, and seemed to have some ideas for modernizing the Maid of Might from her incredibly goofy origins in Action Comics 252.  

I won't get into it here, but Supergirl as a property allows for some flexibility as the character's titles never last, no one working on the latest iterations seems aware of prior incarnations, and once on the title, never seems to know what to do with the character for more than 3-6 issues.  I have probably hundreds of Supergirl comics, and there's been exactly two modern runs that I would recommend.

The show started off on CBS, which was always an awkward fit and probably one of the things that drove DC and WB to realize that working with network suits was more trouble than it's worth.  For the first half of the first season, the show felt deeply uncomfortable with itself, bucking against old network tropes and trying to make the domestic life of Kara Zor-El as basic as possible.

PODCAST: "The Man Who Would Be King" (1975) - a Signal Watch Canon episode w/ SimonUK and Ryan

Watched: 10/15/2021

Format:  Amazon Streaming

Viewing: First

Decade:  1970's

Director:  John Huston

For more ways to listen

Two wayward souls, maybe a bit past their prime and in over their heads, seek fortune and glory - and that's just our podcasters. Join SimonUK and Ryan as we head into poorly charted territory and look into a film featuring two of our favorite film stars in an adventure that probably needed some better planning.  But you gotta admire the moxie.

The Signal Watch PodCast · 169: "The Man Who Would Be King" (1975) - a Signal Watch Canon Episode w/ SimonUK and Ryan

Music:

Theme from The Man Who Would Be King - Maurice Jarre

Canon Playlist 

The Signal Watch PodCast · The Signal Watch Canon