Watch Party! "Sheena" - Queen of the Jungle! TONITE

 

We're gonna pour one out for Tanya and celebrate her starring role as classic pulp hero, Sheena: Queen of the Jungle!  Is that a tiger?  Tigers don't live in Africa.  What the actual hell?

Anyway, I saw this in 5th grade in a brief window where we had HBO and all I remember is "too many flamingos".  

We're gonna watch this thing.  

Day:  Friday 02/11

Time:  8:30 PM Central/ 6:30 Pacific

Where:  Amazon Prime

Cost:  $0, I believe - but you'll WISH you could give someone some money

CLICK HERE TO GO WILD WITH SHEENA

This is what you're signing up for

Happy Birthday, Laura Dern

Happy Birthday to the one and only Laura Dern!  And, hey, they released the trailer for Jurassic World Dominion today.  So, our gift is more Dr. Ellie Sattler.  And that's never a bad thing.

PodCast 182: "No Time To Die" (2021) - A Bond PodCast Episode w/ SimonUK and Ryan

Watched:  01/30/2022

Format:  BluRay

Viewing: First

Director:  Cary Joji Fukunaga

For more ways to listen

SimonUK and Ryan finally get to the final appearance of Daniel Craig as everyone's favorite problematic Brit who isn't SimonUK himself. It's international intrigue, adventure, architecture, and gliders-which-are-boats! Get recruited into another fine installment of our occasional Bond-ian film discussion!

The Signal Watch PodCast · 182: "No Time To Die" (2021) - A Bond PodCast Episode w/ SimonUK and Ryan

Music:

No Time to Die - Billie Eilish

 

Bond Watch Playlist

The Signal Watch PodCast · Bond Watch!

Happy Belated Birthday to Ida Lupino

 

Yesterday was the birthday of film star, producer and director, Ida Lupino.  

She's in several amazing films, including a personal favorite, While the City Sleeps.  In the movie, she plays the fast-talking gossip reporter for a major newspaper, who wants to get with Dana Andrews (and does, somewhat on screen enough that you know offscreen the characters hooked up) but he returns to his pure as the driven snow girlfriend in the film's finish.  

Dana Andrews made a wrong choice.

you fool, Andrews.  

Television Watch: The Righteous Gemstones

The Righteous Gemstones takes the tried-and-true David Gordon Green/ Jody Hill/ Danny McBride formula of southern-born numbskulls with no filter (Eastbound and Down, Vice Principals) and this time focuses on the family of a highly successful televangelist, Eli Gemstone (John Goodman).  McBride plays Jesse Gemstone, the eldest child of Eli and Eli's now-deceased wife Aimee-Leigh.  Adam Devine plays the youngest child, Kelvin, a man-baby, closeted even from himself.  And Edi Patterson plays Judy Gemstone, the near feral daughter who somehow takes it up a notch even from what McBride is delivering.  Other players include Smallville's Cassidy Freeman as Amber Gemstone (if you thought she was maybe one of the more talented folks on Smallville, she's here to show that notion was correct.  She's maybe too young for the role, but she's great, so let it slide), Jesse's wife.  And, Walton Goggins as Eli's brother-in-law, Baby Billy.

I have to stop there, because one of the fascinating things about The Righteous Gemstones is the massive scale of the show, including the cast.  All those names aren't even scraping the surface of all the characters.  We see a massive sanctuary/ auditorium, each Gemstone has a separate McMansion on the family plot, there's a theme park (Heritage USA, baby!), and a story that sprawls across decades.  The ambition of the show - which is centered on an emotionally stunted, foul-mouthed clan who earnestly believe both in their righteousness and whatever is the last thing to come out of their mouths (no matter how vulgar or insane) and the very real failings of people on a pedestal.  Especially those who would claim to speak for God.  

PodCast 181: "Eternals" (2021) - Marvel Movie Madness w/ Jamie and Ryan

Watched: 01/15/2022

Format:  Disney+

Viewing:  First

Director:  Chloe Zhao

For more ways to listen

Jamie and Ryan take on the 2021 Marvel entry that some has said has an eternal runtime. It's got a cast of thousands, and that's just the Eternals themselves. Join us as we get Kirby-tastic!

The Signal Watch PodCast · 181: "Eternals" (2021) - Marvel Movie Madness w/ Jamie and Ryan

Music:

Eternally - Englebert Humperdink

Eternal Flame - The Bangles

Marvel Movies

The Signal Watch PodCast · Avengers Chronological Countdown (w/ Jamie and Ryan)

Howard Hesseman Merges With the Infinite

Actor Howard Hesseman has passed.

If you've never seen WKRP in Cincinnati or it's been a long time,  I would encourage you to go back and check it out for a number of reasons.  I think Dr. Johnny Fever is kind of remembered as a kind-of-out-of-it drive-time DJ on the show, but returning to it - yes, he's that.  But Hesseman brought a level to the character that I think you were likely to miss when you were a kid, seeing everything as cartoons.  Johnny Fever is a guy with a lot of disappointments who has seen a lot, and winding up a DJ at a low-rated radio station in the midwest is all just part of the journey.  But under that, Hesseman brought intelligence and heart to the character - same as he would every time he showed up on screen after.

And that's what I associate most with Hesseman, was really the extra layer he always seemed to have in mind when bringing a character to life - that no character would just be a single thing, and they'd have depths that were there once you got past introductions.

Rock Watch: The Nowhere Inn (2021)

Watched:  01/29/2022

Format:  Hulu

Viewing:  First

Director:  Bill Benz

Rock stardom in the modern era is not what I think it was 30 years ago.  Sure, there are acts that can fill a stadium these days, but in the age of splintered genres, channels, modes of consuming music, etc...  when is someone "famous" as a musician or band?

The Nowhere Inn (2021) is a very small film that can very much feel like Annie Clark (aka: St. Vincent/ aka: Annie Clark) and Carrie Brownstein fucking around with a budget and telling a rock-and-roll fable that falls somewhere between Ziggy Stardust and Lynch and/ or a dozen other "identity" films.  That's not to say it isn't a watchable and interesting film, but it flits between "I feel like I've seen this before", "Oh, this is a very fun bit", and "people are assuming I know a lot more about Carrie Brownstein and Annie Clark's lives than I do".  

I genuinely cannot remember seeing a movie before that seemed so unclear on the idea that movies are a mass medium and need to contain everything the viewer needs to know - making references to information I'd be lost without from interviews I glanced at between 6 months and 4 years ago is... a choice.  

Finally Got to it Watch: Firestarter (1984)

Watched:  01/28/2021

Format:  Amazon Watch Party

Viewing:  First

Director:  Mark L. Lester

Firestarter (1984) is a 90 minute movie that the studio inexplicably decided needed to be 2 full hours.  A taut 90 minutes would have not given me time to ponder "why is this happening?  Why is anyone doing what it is they are doing?  Why would anyone be this dumb?"

But the movie is 120 minutes, and so I did think these things.  

I don't blame director Mark L. Lester, who brought us Commando and Bobbi Jo and the Outlaw, because I think he did some stuff in this movie very well, but there's just too much movie here, which is an editing problem.  And, he didn't write the script.  I also don't blame Tangerine Dream, who provided the score and who are not at their best here.  

I don't blame Drew Barrymore, who is a child in this movie.  Nor do I blame Martin Sheen or George C. Scott, Louise Fletcher or Art Carney.  I might be blaming everyone else.  This movie is boring and makes no sense, and for a movie that's 120 minutes so they can explain stuff but that just keeps making things worse, that's a feat.  

Marvel Re-Watch: Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings (2021)

Watched: 01/27/2021

Format:  Disney+

Viewing:  Second/ Third (I rewatched 3/4ths of this movie a few days after I watched it the first time)

Director:  Destin Daniel Cretton

We podcasted this one a while back.  

A rewatch with some time under my belt made me appreciate this movie even more, and I'd take back some of what I said on the podcast about Shang-Chi not having enough to do.  It's less than others, but he's doing plenty.  And Simu Liu is absolutely present in every scene.  There's a lot going on with his character and it's there in small looks and reactions.  Acting is reacting, and he's nailing that - in character as an observer who has a lot going on inside that he doesn't say out loud.

Between excellent all-ages action, very strong performers, and some deft world-building, I won't say it's a flawless film, but it's so... watchable.  And the characters all so well defined, I want to hang out with everyone in the film, even the bad guys.  I mean, I don't care what bad stuff Tony Leung's Xu Wenwu is supposed to have done, he seems cool AF.

I also am not as certain where Xialing winds up at the end of the film.  Is she reforming the Ten Rings organization?  Tilting back to running her dad's criminal empire?  The Ten Rings have sided with Ta Lo, and Xialing has fought nobly with her brother and Ying Nan's crew, so...  anyway, I enjoy the ambiguity at the end.  

And hats off to Awkwafina, who is both hilarious and absolutely grounds the film without shouting "say what....?" after every revelation.  The decade of friendship with Shang-Chi means she's very much working to understand the world, but we're never told by a very funny character that we shouldn't take it seriously.  That's something you would not have seen pre-Marvel Studios.

Anyhoo...  I love this movie.  I don't do top 10 lists or anything, but I do feel like this is up there with the movies I'll rewatch for years on end.