Musical Watch: West Side Story (2021)

Watched:  03/05/2021

Format:  Disney+

Viewing:  First

Director:  Steven Spielberg

We won't belabor you with the facts of the 1957 stage play or much about the original film.  There's an endless stream of media on the topic, and even last year we were treated to a lengthy special on the 1961 film reuniting Rita Moreno, George Chakiris and Russ Tamblyn.

I know I was aware of West Side Story when my mom took me to see it as a play in a small, downtown theater in Austin's former warehouse district around 5th or 6th grade.  I don't remember much in the way of my impressions other than being shocked that our heroes didn't walk away into the sunset - unhappy endings were still a novelty at that point.

It's likely I saw at least part of the 1961 version when I was 14 and my English class covered Romeo and Juliet.  But I didn't see it in full til summer of 1992 when I was at a drama camp for 7 weeks.*  I very much remember crowding around the TV and the silence from a room full of 17-year-olds at the film's end.  And, of course, being told "no, the girl in purple is Rita Moreno."

Neo-Noir Watch: Fargo (1996)

Watched:  02/28/2022

Format:  TCM

Viewing:  Unknown

Decade:  1990's

Director:  Joel Coen

God damn, this movie.  

Like many, I loved (LOVED) Fargo when we saw it in the theater back in 1996, and I watched it several times in the years immediately following, but it's been a long stretch since I last watched it beginning to end.  I was watching the final 20 minutes or so of Blood Simple on TCM, and Jamie suggested we record Fargo and watch it in a day or so, and as Jamie is wise, I was on board.    

And, really, the two movies aren't a bad pairing.  

Blood Simple - the Coens' first - is a horror-like noir with trappings of unfaithful wives, murder of lovers, which might have been in drawing rooms in the 1940's and is transplanted to suburban Texas (the greater Austin area) where it all takes on a sheen of low-fi, red neckiness.  But it also is Texas mean - something we'd see repeated in their adaptation of No Country For Old Men.  

Famously, Fargo (1996) takes place between Fargo, North Dakota and Minneapolis, Minnesota, with stops in Brainerd, Minnesota - and all in the whiteout dead of winter.  The film exists in empty spaces, from the wide open plains of Brainerd to parking lots with a single car to lake fronts in winter.  Minneapolis, with people huddled inside, has its own sense of emptiness.  Even the spacious home of the Lundegaards has a kind of desolation.  

101 Years of Cyd Charisse

Today marks the 101st birthday of film star Cyd Charisse.  

Charisse is one of those people that - if you know *anything* about classic film, you're like "of course, Cyd Charisse".  If you don't know who she is, study up.  

I'll put my cards on the table and say, Cyd Charisse made quite an impression on me as a young film student.  An amazing dancer - maybe one of the five or so best I can think of in film, and seemingly with the most diversity in her dancing bag of tricks, Charisse was also not just movie-star gorgeous, but had a restrained sexiness that the studios deployed with as much taste as possible. 

She was a partner of choice for Gene Kelly, Fred Astaire and other giants, and it's no wonder.  Ballet, modern, whatever was needed for a sequence, she was there and making someone like Gene Kelly somehow look even better as a dancer.

PodCast 187: "Fantastic Four" (2005) - FF Part 1 - a Kryptonian Thought Beast Episode w/ Danny Horn and Ryan

Watched:  02/27/2022

Format:  Disney+

Viewing:  Third?  Fourth?

Decade:  2000's

Director:  Tim Story

For more ways to listen

Guest contributor Danny Horn joins us as we miscalculate and wind up victims of a mutation leading to a 2-part episode! To be completely transparent, in this installment, we stretch our film reviewing, but wind up with some rock solid observations you'll find hot, hot, hot. First up we talk the 2005 attempt by Fox to turn Stan and Jack's creation into a film, by making a movie about people who do nothing particularly heroic and keep making Jessica Alba disrobe for no reason.

The Signal Watch PodCast · 187: "Fantastic Four" (2005) - FF Part 1 - a Kryptonian Thought Beast Episode w/ Danny Horn and Ryan

Music:

Fantastic Four Main Theme (2005) - John Ottman

Marvel Madness - Movies and More..!

The Signal Watch PodCast · Marvel Madness, Movies and More...!

Doc Watch: Class Action Park (2020)

Watched:  03/01/2022
Format:  HBOmax
Viewing:  First

Director:  Seth Porges

In the way of so many documentaries, this one was about 85% of the way there, but I couldn't go with them the last stretch of the film when they try to "make sense of it all".  Class Action Park (2020) is a feature-length doc about the notorious amusement park, Action Park, formerly located outside of New York City that has, since the early 00's, spawned legends of how out of control the place was, and, in fact, dangerous.  Open through the 1980's, the park was one of hundreds, if not thousands, dotting America.

The first half of the film is hysterical as you take a look at the rides and hear tales of how the place was owned and operated by a former penny-stocks Wall Street tycoon banned from the market by the SEC (I think).  He took his Randian concept of personal risk and responsibility as a businessman, applied that to amusement park attendance, and built a two-sided theme park - one side water-based rides like slides and wavepools, and the other being go-karts.  For anyone growing up in the 1980's, you'll see a lot of things you also took part in.  Bumper boats, go-karts, water slides.  But our go-karts at Malibu Grand Prix had speed governors.  Theirs did not.

Brit Noir Watch: Cast a Dark Shadow (1955)

Watched:  02/28/2022

Format:  Noir Alley TCM

Viewing:  First

Decade:  1950's

Director:  Lewis Gilbert

Apparently Cast a Dark Shadow (1955) received poor notices and didn't set the box office on fire upon its release, and I can see how in the mid-50's this thriller would disappear into the background of so much in the way of crime films, mystery, murder and mayhem.  

But I dug it.  

Starring Dirk Bogarde and Margaret Lockwood, it feels like it never shakes off its roots as a stageplay, and that's not necessarily a bad thing.   The limited number of sets and lack of spectacle keeps the focus on just story and character - which all of the players manage well with their performances and under Gilbert's direction.  

Bogarde plays a young man of the working classes who has found himself married to a much older woman whom he decides to bump off for the money.  It's a bit of an elaborate scheme, both what he plans to do to accomplish the lady's demise and what needs to happen after.  But, that accomplished, he sets out to find another older lady to help him get some cash.  

Here, he meets Lockwood, and she's worldly and wise in a way no other woman has been.  But she's also not that much older (and looks like Margaret Lockwood), and has her own mind about things.  

Bogarde settles in a bit until yet another older woman shows up and seems like easy enough pickings.  

Bogarde and Lockwood are individually fantastic in the film, and together it's a fascinating bit of chemistry.  Lockwood's working class girl who married well enough is a great role, and my guess is it's so different (and she's shockingly old at 39 here) from what was happening on screen elsewhere, audiences may have been thrown off.  But she's terrific.  Bogarde gets to go full raving nutter by film's end, and you get to see his range over the course of the film from glances and moments of pause to talking to empty chairs and banging on them with canes.  It's something else.

It's not a movie that will change your life, but it's a terrific, taught thriller.  Check it out.

Musical Watch: The Man of La Mancha (1972)

artwork by the remarkable Ted CoConis

Watched:  02/26/2022

Format:  Amazon Prime

Viewing:  First

Decade:  1970's

Director:  Arthur Hiller

In high school I saw a college production of Man of La Mancha, and loved the show.  But somehow I never got around to watching the film.  By end of high school, I was familiar with O'Toole and Loren, so that wasn't a deterrent, and even back then, I didn't blink at watching movies from decades past.  I did plan to read Don Quixote on the heels of seeing the play, but never got to it.*  What has shocked me over the years is that the music from the show and the general spirit of a show I saw once at age 17 have stuck with me.

Even if you've never read Cervantes (and I have not) The Man of La Mancha (1972) is absolutely a worthwhile watch.  It's a strange movie, following the show's format, it's a play within a play.  Layer of illusion upon layer of illusion.  Cervantes is an actor performing the play he's written of Man of La Mancha in a town square when the Spanish Inquisition appears and, charging him with heresy, hauls him off to stand trial.  While waiting for his show trial, he cools his heels in a large, open dungeon with a multitude of fellow prisoners who decide to hold their own kangaroo court for him - and in order to explain himself, he sets about using the prisoners to portray a version of his play.

PodCast 186: "The Expendables" (2010) - w/ SimonUK and Ryan

Watched:  02/22/2022

Format:  Amazon Streaming

Viewing: First

Decade: 2010's

Director:  Stallone

For more ways to listen

SimonUK and Ryan relive some glory days by teaming up and trying to recapture the magic of when a man could be a man by blowing up an imaginary Central American country with a drug trade. We talk the melting pot action adventure that crosses multiple decades, revived careers, and firmly believes that Charisma Carpenter should stay off the market on your behalf even if you only check in with her quarterly and won't tell her anything about yourself. But, also, Eric Roberts has a plan that makes literally no sense but seems profitable. Like the My Pillow guy.

The Signal Watch PodCast · 186: "The Expendables" (2010) - w/ SimonUK and Ryan

Music:

Expendables Main Theme - Brian Tyler

SimonUK Cinema

The Signal Watch PodCast · SimonUK Cinema Series

Watch Party Watch: The Adventures of Buckaroo Banzai Across the Eighth Dimension (1984)

Watched:  02/25/2022

Format:  Amazon Watch Party

Viewing:  Unknown

Director:  W.D. Richter

A first viewing of The Adventures of Buckaroo Banzai Across the Eighth Dimension (1984) is not an easy task, I would assume.  

I saw Buckaroo Banzai on its release in the theater thanks to a dad who was not particularly nerdy and didn't care for nerd culture, but had certainly enjoyed serials and whatnot in his youth, and absolutely got what the movie was selling.  And I loved it.  Absolutely was into the movie.  I still love the idea of a team of folks with specialties standing between civilization and chaos.  And I got that the movie was funny and winky.  

But I also watched it over and over on cable and recorded on VHS for a bit through middle school.  What I didn't know was that the movie had flopped.  Horribly.  I mean, it made sense that my dad had to drive us across town to the one theater showing the movie, which was mostly empty.  But I also had seen Adventures in Babysitting in a theater so empty of anyone but me and my pals, the manager had come in before the movie to tell us "no monkeyshines", and that's an American classic.

Friday Watch Party: The Adventures of Buckaroo Banzai Across the 8th Dimension

Well, we're gonna do a watch party.  And we're going to do a movie that holds a very special place in my heart.  If there's one fictional character I wish I could be, and not fly around in a red cape, it may be the titular character of this 1980's sci-fi adventure comedy whatzit.  The coolest character to ever take the screen.

Scientist/ Stunt driver/ rock and roll musician/ philosopher and so much more: Buckaroo Banzai

Day:  Friday 02/25/2022

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

Format:  Amazon Streaming

Cost:  $0 for Prime Members/ $4 for non-Prime Members

CLICK HERE TO JOIN US ACROSS THE 8TH DIMENSION, MONKEY BOY