St. Patrick's Day Watch: Leprechaun (1993)

Watched:  03/11/2022

Format:  Amazon Watch Party

Viewing:  Second

Director:  Who knows and who cares

I watched Leprechaun the first time at a party during what I think was Christmas break 1993.  I don't really remember much about it except for that the Leprechaun was a vicious dick and it featured Jennifer Aniston before I knew who she was.  

It follows the same pattern as a lot of horror from that era, and this era.  People are in a country house of some kind, and a dangerous force attacks.  The house actually looks quite a bit like the house from Critters or five dozen other movies of the era.  In this case, an Irish immigrant has returned home from a funeral and brought with him a bag of gold he stole from a leprechaun (Warwick Davis).  Now in the Western United States, he rightfully assumes he's safe from a magical being an ocean away.  

He's not, but he traps the leprechaun in a box for a decade until Jennifer Aniston and her dad show up to rent the house.  The movie also features a "hunky guy" house painter for Aniston to latch onto, his kid brother and the guy who stole Pee-Wee Herman's bike playing a moron.  

A bit about the thing with Mark Holton's moron...  

PodCast 188: "Fantastic Four" (2015) - FF Part 2 - a Kryptonian Thought Beast Episode w/ Danny Horn and Ryan

Watched:  03/01/2022

Format:  Disney+

Viewing: First

Director:  Josh Trank

For more ways to listen

Danny Horn and Ryan continue on their Marvelous adventure, picking up with Fox's fabulous alternative attempt at bringing the Fantastic Four to the silver screen. And what's more fun for the kids showing up for a superhero romp than turning Marvel's first family into a body horror spectacular? Why, you can also double-down with dead-eyed stars, a grim-as-hell plot and an ending that is dumb as hell. But you WILL reconsider the 2005 film and bump it up a few notches in your personal rankings.

SoundCloud

The Signal Watch PodCast · 188: "Fantastic Four" (2015) - FF Part 2 - a Kryptonian Thought Beast Episode w/ Danny Horn and Ryan

YouTube

Music:

Fantastic Four Prelude - Marco Beltram and...  Philip Glass?  WTF?

The mentioned article about how Miles Teller sucks

Marvel Madness Playlist!

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

Friday Watch Party: Leprechaun! Let's Get In the St. Paddy's Day Spirit!

Let's get ready for St. Patrick's Day with a modern classic that launched a franchise and a frankly surprising number of imitators!  See Warwick Davis in his, like, third of fifth most famous role!  A just before Friends Jennifer Aniston!  Be surprised at what a vicious POS a leprechaun can be!

Yes, I saw this, I think Christmas in 1993 after renting it from a gas-station.  

So, get ready for getting ready for the, like, third drunkest holiday of the year!  

Day:  Friday 03/11/2022

Time:  8:30 Central

Service:  Amazon Streaming

Cost:  $4

CLICK HERE TO JOIN US FOR A POT OF MOVIE GOLD!!!!

Western Watch: My Darling Clementine (1946)

Watched:  03/09/2022

Format:  Amazon

Viewing:  First

Director:  John Ford

Yet another deeply factually inaccurate take on the events including Wyatt Earp, Doc Holliday and the Clantons at the OK Corral, but a solid one that throws out all attempts to stay true to the story and instead does its own myth-making.  That's alright.  We have how many years of TV and movies that have used Earp and Holliday as fictional characters with fictional motivations to the point where my usual rules about biopics can't possibly apply.  

I was spurred to check this one out based on a single photo of Victor Mature in a cowboy hat, a still from this movie, and I'm a bit of a Victor Mature fan, and I had never seen him in a western.  When I checked to see what the story was with My Darling Clementine (1946), it was directed by Ford and co-starred Henry Fonda as Earp and Linda Darnell as "Chihuahua", a Mexican songstress.  And, look, I'm only human.  I'll watch a Linda Darnell movie for all the wrong reasons.  The titular Clementine is played by Cathy Downs, who would go on to sci-fi fame in some B pictures like The Amazing Colossal Man, but who also performed in some noir pictures around the 1940's and 50's.  

he's so cool

The movie fictionalizes a full background as a surgeon for "Doc" Holliday (he was a dentist), and makes up a love triangle between himself and Chihuahua, his local saloon lady, and Clementine - a nurse he once loved when he was still practicing.  While the Clantons are trying to remain outlaw lords of Tombstone, they make the mistake of killing Wyatt Earp's (Fonda's) brother, which leads to Earp becoming Marshall of Tombstone - already famed for his work in Dodge City and Deadwood.  Earp falls hard for the virtuous Clementine, and she has some conflicted feelings (and Doc seems kinda screwed up anyway, plus, you know, he's dating Linda Darnell).  

I can genuinely recommend the movie.  I think it's got a lot going for it, and Ford gets great stuff out of his four leads.  The real life story will continue to exist, but I like the arc for Mature's Holliday, and I think he nails it.   But you've also got Ford's Monument valley backdrops, beautifully shot, thoughtful execution of scene after scene, and a kind of humanity to the characters that grounds everything.

I mean...  Linda Darnell

Doc Watch: Lucy and Desi (2022)

Watched:  03/08/2022

Format:  Amazon

Viewing:  First

Director/ Producer:  Amy Poehler

I don't know that I would have looked at Amy Poehler standing on one leg on SNL a couple decades ago and thought "documentarian", but - apparently along with her skills as a comedian/ actor/ director/ writer/ improviser/ producer, we can now include documentarian.

I had no interest in the recently released biopic by Aaron Sorkin.  I'm not a Sorkin-head, and I generally find biopics of well-documented people are really about something going on with the creators, not the actual subjects.  Maybe it's the history major in me, but coming up with make-believe scenes to illustrate some fundamental message imposed on people's lives, you're going to wind up with something between an impression and a grotesquerie.  But, I dunno.  Sometimes it works.  

Documentary, done well, tends to surface actual themes and truths about the subjects as directors find their story in repeated beats in research and interviews.  And when it comes to real people who, once upon a time, were routinely covered in tabloids even after their deaths, who were in our living rooms for decades (I watched reruns of I Love Lucy as a kid), give me some talking heads, production stills and 8mm family movies every time.  

There's a lot here I didn't know, much I did through osmosis mover the years.  But it's well done and - with so many years since the passing of both Lucy and Desi, can afford to be fair-handed as possible while being sympathetic to certain quirks and challenges of both personalities.  That Poehler would see some of her self in Lucille Ball, as a comedian who has been at the top, continues to enjoy celebrity and side projects that are not the heights of what she's known for, but which are solid nonetheless...  I am not entirely shocked she picked Ball as a subject worth of research with whom she could spend time.

The one thing I found profoundly odd that the doc doesn't mention is that Lucy was about 40 when she started working on I Love Lucy.  She was giving birth to children in her 40's, starring in her show and building Desilu essentially in the back-half of a career.  I don't know if Poehler thought it was ageism or sexism or something that need not be discussed, but frankly I think it's vital information for how remarkable Lucille Ball was, because I've seen a few of her films from before the crafted I Love Lucy persona, and it's a different actor.  And second acts should always be celebrated.

Anyway, I'm thrilled Poehler made the doc, and it's as well done as I think you could hope for.  

Emilio Delgado Merges With the Infinite

Sesame Workshop has announced the passing of Emilio Delgado, who we all know as Luis, one of the friendly faces in the neighborhood of Sesame Street.  

Luis was there to show us adults could be kind, curious, considerate and that there were many different kinds of people who were in our communities.  My memory was that I thought Luis was "the funny one" of the human cast members.  I have read a passage or two about what it meant to have a Latino male featured on television to some of my friends.  I believe it.  Delgado had one of the few roles on TV in the 1970's for a Latino male defined as a regular, stand-up guy, and not - as was so often the case in network TV then and now - as a negative stereotype.  

I'll be honest - I think the goals of Sesame Street worked.  To this day, I think of all of the human cast members of Sesame Street as folks I want to run into at the super market.  TV is a powerful tool, and the notion of representation is important for everyone, especially for folks who don't see people who look like themselves on television, but it can also be good for other kids to see those positive  representations to combat the negative portrayals which are a sad default of mass media.

Here's to an actor who brought a welcome face to the screen for generations of kids, who did it with humor and joy.  I'm very sad to hear that Delgado has passed.

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...!