31 Years Ago: Superstition

I've been informed that Siouxsie & the Banshees' "Superstition" dropped 31 years ago today.  

Here's a pair of favorite tracks

 

Julee Cruise Merges With The Infinite

Vocalist and musician Julee Cruise has passed.  

Cruise is well known to fans of Twin Peaks, and is one of the signature sounds of the aural landscape of the show.  She released solo work as well as standing in for Cindy with the B-52's during tours.

She was s unique and rich talent, and she'll be missed.

Doc Watch: Closed For Storm (2020)

Watched:  06/07/2022

Format:  Amazon Prime

Viewing:  First

Director:  Jake Williams

While I've been sick, I've been watching some urban explorer videos and whatnot, and one of the videos I was watching pitched a full documentary the team had put together about the abandoned Six Flags New Orleans.  It's one thing to make a YouTube video with some footage of derelict buildings and combine it with found images and video, and whatever history you can piece together from the internet (which is often shockingly in-depth), so I was curious to see what a full doc looked like when these same folks put in some doc-style labor.  

Closed for Storm (2020) is a solid feature-length-ish effort.  Like the short-form videos by the same team, it chronicles the intentions, financial big movements that impacted the development of the facility, the actual use of the facility, and the factors that led to the decline.  In prior shorter videos, those factors are usually directly economic paired with bad luck and one or two other things, forseeable and otherwise.

Closed for Storm has to grapple with 2005's hurricane Katrina and the impact on New Orleans and the rise and abrupt end to Six Flags New Orleans.  It documents the bizarre purgatory of the property as it sits, rotting more every year, no one making any moves to level the place or do something with it.  The film winds up being a microcosm of the well-documented perfect storm that is Louisiana politics, callowness of big business, economic disparity in action, and the undealt with trauma of a region

As a micro-budget production by folks doing their best, not all of the film feels as polished as it could be.  I was expecting as much.  But it shows promise for the filmmakers if they can continue to elevate this core concept of using something as crazy as an abandoned theme park as a story telling device to illustrate how shit kinda really works/ doesn't work.  

Unlike Astroworld, which was apparently simply financially failing (news to me), Six Flags New Orleans was lost to the storm and given up on by new owners of Six Flags.  From 2005 to the release of this film, the city of New Orleans, never famous for its decision-making, has left the remains of the park to simply rot, rejecting all proposals.  And if you've ever sat through a bureaucratic process like an RFQ proposal, you know there's intense disinterest and misunderstanding by the persons involved.  So, instead of having literally anything else there, the park has just rotted.

Interviews include attendees, former employees, and the folks trying to find ways to revive the property.  Everyone is deeply sincere, and it's a layer to the usual "why it failed" and "urban explorer" videos you see all over YouTube.  We're not just guessing, the video is talking to people who were there, who lost jobs and who saw a good thing for the community abandoned rather than rebuilt, like so much of New Orleans.  But it seems they couldn't get any of the city-folks who so cavalierly dismiss the park year after year.

If I felt like one major point roughly implied, but not directly stated:  the kinds of people who are making decisions about the future of the amusement park shown in the video are not the kind of people who would give one much thought.  I'm not saying they need to be amusement park nerds, but.  They strike me as the sorts of folks who can take days of vacation and jump on a jet and go to Disney if they want to see an amusement park, or go skiing or do whatever.  But vast parts of the population can't afford to and don't do those things.  In a city like New Orleans, which is largely aimed at adult entertainment or expensive pro sports, an amusement park is no small thing.   

Anyway - I hope these folks keep working on their films.  It feels like there's a lot here to consider, and using specific examples of entertainment properties and resorts is fascinating way to consider economic and cultural forces.

Comedy Watch: Senior Year (2022)

Watched:  06/06/2022

Format:  Netflix

Viewing:  First

Director:  Alex Hardcastle

So, it's impossible to talk about this movie and just talk about the movie.  

First, let's get it out of the way - this is a movie that was never, ever intended for me.  So proceed with caution.

Second - this is the first I've seen of Rebel Wilson in a while, and, yes, she's worked hard to reduce, as we once said.  She always looked terrific, and she continues to do so (that is not her actual body in the poster above, which is weird).  Rebel Wilson is all about the eyes and smile, and so long as those don't change, we're good.*

Third - we may now discuss the plot, which opens the can of worms.  

Noir Watch: My Name is Julia Ross (1945)

Watched:  06/04/2022

Format:  TCM Noir Alley

Viewing:  First

Decade:  1940's

Director:  Joseph H. Lewis

I'd had this one burning a hole in my DVR and it seemed like a good way to kill the 90 minutes before I planned to go to bed.  It was actually a B movie in the traditional sense - only 65 minutes or something - so it really fit the bill.   

The plot is whackadoodle and I loved the set up.  Rich-ish jerks go about recruiting a young woman into a job as a secretary, then abscond with her and gaslight her, telling her "no, you're not Julia Ross.  You're Mrs. Hughes" (ie: the wife of the guy she thought was her employer) "and you're crazy.  Sometimes you get these kooky thoughts you're someone else."

Place spunky woman in gothic mansion on a seaside cliff, add paranoia, gaslighting and dickery, and you have a groovy movie.  And, man, is it a cast of FACES.  George Macready, May Whitty, Anita Sharp-Bolster, and even Joy Harington.  Our star is Nina Foch, with whom I'm not terribly well acquainted, but she's terrific.  

Anyway - I'm kinda shocked of the two movies I watched last night, this was the one that had me the most jazzed.

Mystery Watch: Death on the Nile (2022)

Watched:  06/04/2022

Format:  HBOmax

Viewing:  First

Decade:  2020's

Director:  Kenneth Branagh

I have not read any Agatha Christie, which seems like a really stupid blind spot for me to have, but here we are.  I have also not watched Poirot mysteries on PBS and I haven't watched the older versions of these same stories.  I assumed I'd get to them, and I haven't.  Life is short and I mostly waste it.  I did watch the prior movie starring director/ star/ producer Kenneth Branagh, Murder on the Orient Express, and I thought, as a movie, it was pretty solid. Nothing to win awards, but accomplished what it wanted to do.

But as I have COVID and I was trying to figure out how well my brain was working, seeing if I could follow a Poirot mystery seemed like a good idea.  And the answer is - I could follow it!

I 10,000% suspect that this movie is just the bare bones of the original novel, which I am not looking up to check, as I should read the book at some point and I don't want to ruin it. 

This one had a few things going against it.  

Well, I have the COVID

Did some socializing on Monday and on Thursday received the alert that one of the people I'd been socializing with had become sick and subsequently tested positive for COVID.  

I'm not shocked.  I figured these latest mutations were so transmissible, I'd eventually get it unless I continued to live like a hermit as we did for 2020.  We're careful-ish.  No movies, no restaurants.  I wear a mask in and out at work and shut the door behind me when I have to go in.  But, you know, when people can't keep their hands off bats, I guess. 

But, yeah, I tested positive Friday morning - not feeling great then and the coughing starting - and tried to work but by 1:30 hung it up.  I had a telemedicine appointment at 2:20 and got prescribed Paxlovid.  Normally I'm all about FDA testing, but I'd very much like to knock this thing out and not incur long COVID.  

Last night I ran an un-fun fever, but that broke after I went to sleep.  This morning, I'm coughing, runny nose and very run down.  If I have a fever, it's so low it's not an issue.

I'd argue my sense of taste is diminished but not gone.   I could taste the HEB Fruit and Grain bar I ate.  But my coffee, tragically, isn't the flavor wonderland I normally enjoy.  

I expect between the meds, the mild impact I'm hearing reported and experiencing, and good care, I'll be okay.  Jamie has tested negative and seems fine.  She was mostly stressed yesterday watching me just stare at The Meg as it played on TNT (that's about where I was around 8:00).  But she's also had her 4th shot, and even if she technically has COVID right now (and she hasn't tested positive) then there's a strong argument for getting your booster.  Of the two people we saw Monday, one of them also has not tested positive.  So.

The real kick in the shins is that I had planned to go to get a booster next weekend, but my timing was off.  I had stuff to do this weekend and didn't want to be down for a day dealing with any post-shot side-effects.  (sad trombone)

Look, I'm aware of the death toll of this virus and I'm not taking it lightly.  The world wide impact of the virus is well known and I don't need to tell it to you here.  But I'm also pretty sure my Tuesday I'll be right as rain.  

Y'all be careful out there.  This thing is still floating around.  And we're all going to need to hard-ponder our new normal.  

Too Much TV - What Shows I've Been Watching

We had just finished up a few shows, but TV now knows most of us don't actually want to go outside on Memorial Day, and so... it was decreed, a bunch of new stuff would hit around this time.

What we're watching:

Joan Watch: Flamingo Road (1949)

Watched:  05/27/2022

Format:  Amazon Watch Party

Viewing:  2nd?  3rd?

Decade:  1940's

Director:  Michael Curtiz

I remembered really liking this movie, but not many plot details.  What I really recall was that this was that age of post-Mildred Pierce Joan Crawford when she was having a second or third wind in Hollywood and back at the center of movies.  

This one would be a fabulous bit of film for a good old-fashioned "gender in cinema" student paper, with a tough-as-nails female lead who still has to navigate the mid-20th Century gender and sexual politics and the less-than-ideal male figures around her.  Not to mention the presentation of other women in the film who do not have the benefit of being Joan Crawford.

Friday Watch Party: Flamingo Road

I don't really care what this movie is about.  It stars Joan Crawford in her bangin' mid-40's, Sydney @#$%ing Greenstreet and Austin native Zachary Scott.  I mean, if you can't like that, we are not friends.

But, if you've not seen it - Flamingo Road is a grimy melodrama in the American South.  

Watch along tonight!

Day:  Friday - 05/27/2022

Time:  8:30 Central/ 6:30 Pacific

Service:  Amazon

Cost:  $3

link live 10 minutes before showtime!

Click here to set destination for Flamingo Road!!!  Joanie's waiting!