Dog Watch: Clifford the Big Red Dog (2021)

Watched:  05/06/2021

Format:  Amazon

Viewing:  First

Decade:  2020's

Director:  Walt Becker

I dunno.  This is for very small kids, but it also felt like it wasted a lot of goodwill and a lot of potential.  Clifford is a character I don't think about much as I am 47 and I have no children.  But I think if all you can think to do is make a boilerplate kiddie movie that seems lifted from every kiddie movie since Uncle Wat turned his attention to live-action, I dunno.  He's a big fucking dog.  Workshop that shit.  

The movie is chock full of cameos and small roles for known talent and looks like they spent some money on it.  It's a beloved and well known character, and...  it kinda feels like they didn't really know what to do once they got the rights.  

It also takes place in the city, which...  look, maybe the first book is urban, but Clifford is a suburban character.  NYC is a lot of things, but it is not a place where a giant dog is going to fit terribly well long term (he wrote as his own giant dog put his massive noggin on his hand and keyboard).  Like - look, the 'burbs are more dull and less diverse than Harlem - but this is also a fictional movie, and/ or could have been in a small town?  I don't get the setting.  It's okay to country-fi that story.

Maybe the thing that was weirdest about the movie is that it desperately wants to be about *something*, and the thing Clifford had going for him in his origin story is the power of love (to turn a small sickly puppy into a giant dog).  But the movie decides to be about accepting something/ someone who is different.  But then it's about very White people in gentrifying Harlem who seem boringly ordinary, even the wacky uncle who needs to grow up borrowed from every movie, ever.  

I'm all about messages of "hey, don't fear something because it's different or you don't understand it", but the speech at the end is wildly nonsensical and unearned.  Being "new to school" is not weird or different, it's...  an uncomfortable period of adjustment (I moved 3 times during my school years.  You adjust.).  Our Emily Elizabeth is a pretty standard kid.  She doesn't have a third eye or something.  She's "poor", but NYC giant apartment poor.  Normal in her world is having a 27 million dollar loft.

Honestly - who wrote this thing?

Anyway.  I thought the cast looked like they were having fun, Clifford was cute and the last act was at least kind of fun/ funny.  I wouldn't not show this to a small child.  But I also am disappointed that this is the Clifford movie we got.  It's better than the Air Buddies movies by a country mile, but it's still... meh.  Gimme a trick or treating Clifford of GTFO.  

Paddington raised the bar for timeless children's characters into movies, studios.  Work harder.

PodCast 198: "Ghost Rider" (2007) - A Marvel Madness PodCast with Danny Horn (and Ryan)

Watched:  04/29/2022

Format:  Amazon

Viewing: Second

Decade: 2000's

Director:  Mark Steven Johnson

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We make a costly pact for minimal gain - watching 2007's edge-lordiest superhero as he monkeys his way through not hiring a lawyer and all the fall-out. Join us for discussions of acting choices, when the plot in no way adds up, Nic Cage and very, very small feet in this just-before-Marvel-got-good installment.

SoundCloud 

The Signal Watch PodCast · 198: "Ghost Rider" (2007) - A Marvel Madness PodCast with Danny Horn (and Ryan)

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Music:

Ghost Rider - Christopher Young, Album 

Ghost Riders In The Sky - Spiderbait

Marvel Madness PodCasts

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

Comic Artist George Pérez Merges With The Infinite

One of the first comics I read that turned me into a comics fan was in a DC Blue Ribbon Digest (1984), a reprinting of Tales of the Teen Titians #50, one of several landmark issues of the famous run by George Pérez and Marv Wolfman.  Even in that reduced size, I was blown away by the art - in detail, character design, and ability to convey and carry emotion.  And Tales of the Teen Titans was always full of emotion.  

a page from Tales of the Teen Titans 50

Hence, the name George Pérez was one I always took seriously and who made me realize the contribution of the artist in a comic book - both in partnering with the writers, but also how good work absolutely elevated everything in a comic.  

I was a boy when Wonder Woman was rebooted post-Crisis, and boys did not read Wonder Woman (this is the dumbest thing, but it was true).  So it's to my eternal regret that I missed the initial run of George Pérez's solo work on the title, which, if you've never seen it, is achingly gorgeous and simultaneously spawned a generation of artists trying to be Pérez. In the meantime, I've collected every issue and likely have most of it in 2-3 versions of collections.  I may love Kirby and his dynamic flow and over-the-top energy, but Pérez's vision of Themyscira, Olympus, of a professor's home - and his shockingly grounded writing of the series filled with Greek Gods and supernatural terrors also gave way to the emotions of tween girls, middle-aged military brass, and the brave face of a fish-out-of-water Princess making her way through modern-day Boston.  It's so good.

Pérez's Wonder Woman

With his work we don't talk about issues or runs, we talk about "eras".  That's the impact.  

Whether it was Avengers, the phenomenal work of JLA/Avengers or even his indie work - his look and his eye changed everything.

In recent years, it was known his eyesight wasn't great and his health was not good.  And in recent months he announced he was terminal, and would pass.  Unlike so many deaths, which happen as a surprise to the public, Perez's announcement allowed the fans to celebrate him and let him know the impact he'd made on them.  

There is no picture of modern comics I can muster that doesn't include Pérez.  He picked up the torch and the challenge Neal Adams put before everyone to push their work as hard as they could.  And it's unbelievable we'd lose two such giants within days of each other.  

But I am glad the industry and fans got to let him know what he meant.  Godspeed.

New League of Super-Pets trailer

Still pretty happy with everything I've seen so far in the trailers and ads for this.  

Hey, we're getting a full DC Super-Pets movie!  That's excellent!

PodCast 197: "The Medusa Touch" (1978) - A SimonUK Cinema Classic w/ Ryan

Watched:  04/25/2022

Format:  Amazon Prime

Viewing: First

Decade:  1970's

Director:  Jack Gold

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It wouldn't be the first time we used our minds around here and it led to disaster. SimonUK and Ryan get excited about Richard Burton and Lee Remick, respectively, and get on the case of the victim of an attempted murder, who maybe - just maybe - is the source of all sorts of trouble. Join us as we talk an entry in ESP horror paired with police procedural.

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The Signal Watch PodCast · 197: "The Medusa Touch" (1978) - A SimonUK Cinema Classic w/ Ryan

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Music:

The Medusa Touch - Michael J. Lewis 

Simon movies!

The Signal Watch PodCast · SimonUK Cinema Series

80's TV Movie Watch: The Spirit (1987)

Watched:  05/02/2022

Format:  DVD from Warner Archive

Viewing:  First

Decade:  1980's

Director:  Michael Schultz

Way back in the 1980's, I ordered a Bud Plant catalog so I could get an idea of what all was out there in the world of comics.  I remember two things that really stuck out - a Mike Kaluta image of The Shadow (the first time I'd heard of the character) - and an image for a collection of The Spirit strips with P'gell prominently featured.  You know the one.

I didn't know what the hell The Spirit was, but to my 11 year old brain, this seemed very sexy indeed, and I assumed The Spirit was some sort of soft-core comic.  

Flash forward probably only a matter of months, and I read in Comics Scene that someone was making a TV movie of The Spirit, learned more about it (not a softcore book!) and back in the days when we weren't having superhero media rained down upon us, I was very interested.  

Finally the movie was slated to air, and of course there was some scheduling conflict (we just missed TV in those days), but I could probably catch the last hour or so.  I don't remember where we were or what was up, but I do remember my mom ran into a friend and started talking.  And I just had to stand there while the clock spun and my 1980's chances with no DVR faded away of seeing any of the movie.  

I walked in the door, watched the last five minutes, and then went to do homework.

Western Noir Watch: Lust for Gold (1949)

Watched:  05/02/2022

Format:  Criterion Channel

Viewing:  First

Decade:  1940's

Director:  S. Sylvan Simon and George Marshall

Well, Criterion Channel is currently highlighting a collection of films starring Ida Lupino, and that's good news for me, anyway.  Always on the hunt for more Lupino, I wanted to check out something I hadn't seen, and we mostly randomly landed on Lust for Gold (1949), what appeared to be a Western, but which really turned out to be Western Noir, which is absolutely a thing.

This is a supremely weird movie, and they needed to make one movie or the other movie in their movie, but instead they give you two partial movies, and I cannot begin to conceive of the "why".  A full 2/3rds of the film is flashback to events from the 1880's, and the rest takes place, which a much-less-talented team of actors, in the present day of 1949.  And I'm not sure the whole section in 1949 needs to exist at all, and I'm not sure that the events of 1880 shouldn't have been mentioned in about three sentences in a very different version of how the 1949 stuff spins out.

The end result is that you don't get any Ida Lupino until something like 35 minutes into a 90 minute movie, and... come on.  What are we even doing here?

PodCast 196: "Spider-Man: No Way Home" (2021) - A Marvel Madness PodCast w/ Jamie & Ryan

Watched:  04/15/2022

Format:  BluRay

Viewing: First

Decade:  2020's

Director:  Jon Watts

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Jamie and Ryan finally catch up with the gigantic Spider-Man movie from 2021, ponder multiverses, wish fulfillment, and doing something that maybe shouldn't have worked, but did. It's a post-game chat after watching a deeply complicated movie that was either a celebration of Marvel's most beloved hero on film, or it was a very, very weird thing to do/ cash-grab.

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The Signal Watch PodCast · 196: "Spiderman: No Way Home" (2021) - A Marvel Madness PodCast w/ Jamie & ryan

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Music:

Arachnoverture - Michael Giacchino

Marvel Madness Playlist

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

Comics Great Neal Adams Merges With The Infinite

Meeting Adams in November, 2013 

I am shocked and saddened to hear that Neal Adams passed on Thursday.

From The Hollywood Reporter.

Adams' work looms large for all comics fans, and for us Superman and Batman fans, it's seminal work.  Of course he's covered all sorts of other things.  Jamie has an Adams' Wonder Woman print on her office wall.  But to me he's the guy who brought Muhammad Ali to the DCU and advocated for Siegel and Shuster to be recognized financially and as creators when Superman: The Movie was in production.  

He brought an illustrative realism and humanity to his characters that pushed all of comics to a new level when he arrived, and he never quit pushing boundaries as an active creator right up to his passing.  

Do yourself a favor and look for some Neal Adams comics.  

Happy Anniversary, Jamie

Today marks 22 years since Jamie and I tied the knot.  Not bad!  

I don't know what to tell you people.   She's the best.  She's my best pal, the person I can't wait to talk to, and who knows me better than I know myself.  

I am so remarkably, ridiculously lucky.  

Love you, Jamie