Noir Watch: Lightning Strikes Twice (1951)

Watched:  02/23/2023

Format:  TCM

Viewing:  First

Director:  King Vidor

The thing that might leap out at you watching Lightning Strikes Twice (1951) is that the film was written by a woman, based on a novel by a woman.  So while it's absolutely a grimy, desert noir, it's also not focused on a Dana Andrews floating into town and getting in over his head - it's Ruth Roman.  And the male characters of the film are certainly important, but they're not the show that you're here to see.*  This movie has terrific - I mean great - female characters who don't feel like they got knocked out of the "mother", "housewife", "nightclub girl" mold you may realize you've gotten too used to.

Happy 94th Birthday, James Hong!

 

James Hong, one of our greatest and most prolific actors, turned 94 yesterday!  

I mean, honestly, this man is a national treasure and one of the MVPs of movies and television.  Nothing he can't do or hasn't done. 

PodCast 233: "Superman IV: The Quest for Peace" (1987) - A KTB PodCast w/ Danny, Stuart and Ryan

Watched: 02/10/2023

Format:  HBOmax

Viewing:  Unknown

Decade:  1980's

Director:  Sidney J Furie

For more ways to listen

For Danny's Superheroes Every Day blog

Well. It's time to talk about the final, and possibly flawed installment of the Christopher Reeve movies about the Big Blue Boy Scout. Join three fellows who have spent way too much time pondering Superman, Superman movies, and the cinema of the 1980's as they consider topics such as "should this story have been told?", "what could have been?" and "who cooks a duck in someone else's hotel suite?" It's a Kryptonian Thought Beast episode for the ages!

SoundCloud 

The Signal Watch PodCast · 233: "Superman IV: The Quest for Peace" (1987) - A KTB PodCast w/ Danny, Stuart and Ryan

YouTube

Music:

Superman Main Titles (8 Bit Version) - 8 Bit Universe 

DC Movies and Television

The Signal Watch PodCast · DC Cinema and TV

Superheroes Every Day PodCast Episodes

The Signal Watch PodCast · Superheroes Every Day

President's Day: James Carter - the 39th President of the United States

Former President James "Jimmy" Carter is on my mind these days as he is, at age 98, entering hospice care.  

Perhaps now more famous and liked for his post-Presidential career than his time during office - a period during which I would not envy anyone who was in the White House - Carter may not be with us much longer, so now seems like an opportune time to remind all of us who Jimmy Carter is other than a nice old man who spends a lot of time volunteering for Habitat for Humanity.

Carter was born and raised in Plains, Georgia, where his family had a peanut farm.  He would leave to go to college, finishing as a Naval Academy graduate, which led to his military service aboard submarines in both the Pacific and Atlantic fleets.  Clearly he had something going on upstairs as he was selected to study reactor technology as nuclear submarines came online.  Yes.  He's a nuclear engineer.  

Raquel Watch Party Watch: Kansas City Bomber (1972)

Watched:  02/17/2023

Format:  Amazon Watch Party

Viewing:  First

Decade:  1970's

Director:  Jerrold Freedman

So...  Picking movies for Friday watch parties is always a challenge.  We talk over the movies, so it can't be anything too complicated.  It has to be fun because we're not watching a movie on a Friday to be miserable - and that's not the vibe for riffing, anyway.  

While Raquel Welch is an international icon, and I wanted to use the Watch Party to celebrate her the week of her passing, she is just as likely to play a supporting part as a lead.  But this was all about Ms. Welch, and thus I was also looking to find a movie in which she played the lead.  Plus, I like Roller Derby.  So, I picked Kansas City Bomber (1972), not really knowing much about it.  But that is not to say that I saw the trailers and was not dazzled that the romantic co-star was Kevin McCarthy.  I mean... 

Friday Watch Party: Come Celebrate Raquel Welch with "Kansas City Bomber"

Sadly, this week we lost movie star Raquel Welch.  

Let's remember this singular movie star with a movie that shows her acting, her toughness and let's Welch look terrific while elbowing jerks off a banked track.  

Day:  Friday  02/17/2023

Time:  8:30 Central/ 6:30 Pacific

Service:  Amazon

Cost:  $3

CLICK HERE TO WHIP IT WITH WELCH

(link live 10 minutes before showtime)

Noir Watch: Kiss The Blood Off My Hands (1948)

Watched:  02/15/2023

Format:  TCM

Viewing:  First

Director:  Norman Foster

Boy, they really used to know how to name a movie, didn't they?  

Kiss the Blood Off My Hands (1948) is post-war noir, filmed in Hollywood doing it's darndest to look like post-War London, and populated by British ex-pats and Burt Lancaster.  You get Joan Fontaine!  How can that be wrong?

This film is the darkest of noir, and an interesting example of the movement.  Normally I think of noir as including either a person who is in a morally corrupt world because of their choice of job as a detective, but much more often as a person who is corrupted by a compulsion (here's where you get your femme fatales leading morally shaky fellows astray) and their world turns upside down.  But this movie has a flawed protagonist who is also the victim of what we'd now call PTSD - a veteran of the war who saw no point in going back to the U.S. and is adrift in London.  

Raquel Welch Merges With The Infinite

Raquel Welch, star of screen and stage, has passed.

Let's be candid.  In sixth grade, my science teacher took a rare break from biology, electricity and all the other things we studied that year and showed us Fantastic Voyage, because it's actually a really cool way to discuss the human body and what we knew about it at the time of filming.  And, of course, the movie co-starred Raquel Welch who seared herself into my budding consciousness as a wildly attractive woman of great intelligence, which is just the killer formula for making a lifelong fan of a kid.

I recall reading an interview where Welch mostly thought of herself as a working actor trying to make a living as a single mom when she found stardom, and while she was fighting blood cells with lasers, or fighting dinosaurs, she was thinking about making sure her kids had shoes.  That certainly skewed my perspective on her as a performer.

Fortunately, Welch went on to fame and fortune, only really retiring about five or six years ago.  IMDB credits her with 73 roles, a producer on 2 projects and a writer on 1.  She had more or less walked away from the spotlight since and hadn't conducted interviews in a few years.

A few years ago, I had opportunity to review a newly released BluRay of One Million Years B.C., and found it absolutely terrific.  And I feel I did a fair job of giving Welch her due in a movie with no spoken lines.

Because Welch never lost her beauty or glamour, I suppose I didn't realize she was aging like the rest of humanity.  I'm very sorry to hear she's gone on.

PodCast 232: "Cutthroat Island" (1995) - A Movie of Doom w/ SimonUK and Ryan

Watched:  02/05/2023

Format:  Amazon

Viewing:  Second

Decade:  1990's

Director:  Renny Harlin

For more ways to listen

Yarrr! Shiver me timbers! 'Tis the 1995 movie that made us voluntarily seek Davey Jones' locker. We walk the plank of 90's spectacle filmmaking to reconsider a movie that no one boarded, and it still sank to the ocean floor despite extravagant sets, seemingly real boats, giant cannons, a monkey and the always watchable Geena Davis. ...and yet...

SoundCloud 

The Signal Watch PodCast · 232: "Cutthroat Island" (1995) - A Movie of Doom w/ SimonUK and Ryan

YouTube

Music:

Cutthroat Island Main Theme - John Debney 

MOVIES OF DOOM!

The Signal Watch PodCast · Movies of Doom

Happy Birthday, Danai Gurira

Happy Birthday to Danai Gurira!