The Play's The Thing Watch: Deathtrap (1982)

Watched:  03/28/2023

Format:  TCM

Viewing:  First

Director:  Sidney Lumet

We watched Deathtrap (1982) in 2 parts, watching the first 30 minutes or so the night before we wrapped it up, finishing the last hour.  In between, I made comment to some pals that you don't see many movies about plays and the theatre, especially based on plays.  There are some, but not a lot.  There's a gulf in many folk's knowledge of Broadway other than that the tickets are pretty expensive when Spamelot! comes to town, but you pay it.  I expect this is a bit different for New Yorkers or Londoners, which an overwhelmingly vast majority of us are not, so movies have to be careful and ensure folks living in the suburbs know wtf they're talking about.

Still, you can do it and get away with it.  I can't name one of the movies we kicked around that I'd seen (Noises Off!, Rosencrantz and Gildenstern, Chorus Line) that I don't like.  Probably should have squeezed in Cabaret for good measure.  

And, of course, I'm a Michael Caine stan, and the co-star is Christopher Reeve.  Plus: Dyan Cannon!  

It's a movie with a small cast, with Caine on screen > 75% of the time.  Sticking to the stageplay, it mostly takes place inside a single location of an East Hamptons house - something I assume means something to people from NYC and only marginally something to folks from Austin, TX.  

It's Caine as a failing playwright of comedic thrillers, his wealthy wife Dyan Cannon, and Christopher Reeve, who has written a brilliant play on his first go.  Caine realizes he can steal the play if he bumps off Reeve and takes it, putting his own name on it.

The set-up and set allows for amazing staging with props left over from Caine's prior shows scattered around, also his vintage collection of weapons, etc... 

For a play about plays, it doesn't get too in the weeds, I think, even as it probably was making jokes I wasn't quite getting referring to the theater scene.  It also has a very tight grip on the mechanics of thrillers - as it both is a thriller and talks about thrillers, and sometimes passes through the looking glass in a single scene where it becomes clear the action is mounting even as the characters discuss mechanics as they perform them.

That is really the astounding bit.  Loved it.

It's a sort of light-chuckle comedy for the most part - that's part of the mix when you're also writing a script with the fairly serious business of murder for personal gain.  Cannon's character is a Simon character with daffy quirks you know aren't just set dressing, and tossing in a psychic with an accent is a lot, but in it's better moments the thing works splendidly.

SPOILERS

But the last scene was... not great.  Already it's hard to deal with a thriller that requires a wacky character to have what seems to be functioning ESP.  You've just entered magic into your thriller, plus a complete lack of boundaries from a stranger in a way that feels dishonest.  

Ha ha.  Got it.  She used her abilities to suss out the situation and made a buck off the two guys bumping each other off...  it's just not narratively very satisfying.  But it also feels very much like something in 1980 people would have found cute.  And cute is a weird f'ing turn for this movie to pursue in the final minutes of run time.  

Overall, I liked the movie, but it's really weird to watch something and feel like the movie absolutely fumbled on the one yard line.  Maybe a re-watch would get me to reconsider, but I don't know how inclined I am to a re-watch.

That said, Caine is typically phenomenal Caine, Reeve is fucking great, and Dyan Cannon is an absolute delight.

PodCast 238: "Vertical Limit" (2000) - a SimonUK Cinema Series Episode w/ Ryan

Watched:  03/19/2023

Format:  AMC ondemand

Viewing: First

Decade:  2000's

Director:  Martin Campbell

For more ways to listen

Why would we watch this movie? Because it's there! SimonUK and Ryan scale a mighty wall that is this 2000-era bonafide hit that has disappeared into thin air. Join us as we cling to the rock face of pre-Google movies, leap to conclusions, and feel our lungs filling with 90's-style action! It's not the Stallone movie from like 8 years earlier! It's the other mountain movie!

SoundCloud 

The Signal Watch PodCast · 238: "Vertical Limit" (2000) - a SimonUK Cinema Series Episode w/ Ryan

YouTube

Music:

Opening - James Newton Howard, Vertical Limit OST 

MacArthur Park - Richard Harris

SimonUK Cinema Series

The Signal Watch PodCast · SimonUK Cinema Series

Musical Watch: Gentlemen Prefer Blondes (1953)

Watched:  03/25/2023

Format:  YouTube

Viewing:  Unknown

Director:  Howard Hawks

Just a heads-up:  this movie is streaming for free on YouTube right now.  If you've never seen it, give it a whirl.  

I'm going to keep this short because maybe 2/3rds of the way through this viewing, I realized this would be a fine movie to podcast sometime.  So, regular podcast contributors, hit me up if you want in.

It's funny - for a movie that's very, very famous, I don't see the actual story or characters of the movie discussed all that much, let alone the themes, subversions, etc...  Maybe I just hang in the wrong circles.  They focus on Diamonds Are a Girl's Best Friend, which, fair enough...   Monroe redefined sexiness for the Western world in a single musical number.  But the whole movie is solid, smart and @#$%ing funny.

Anyway, if you happen to think Jane Russell and Marilyn Monroe are a generally good idea (and I do), this may be the movie for you.

greatest walking to a table scene ever put to film

Watch Party Watch: A Fish Called Wanda (1988)

Watched:  03/24/2023

Format:  Amazon Watch Party

Viewing:  Unknown

Director:  Charles Crichton

Well, this week is Jamie's birthday and this is one of her favorite movies, and it's also still adjacent to Jamie Lee Curtis winning an Oscar, so it seemed like a great chance to celebrate Jamies, so our Jamie picked this film to watch.

It was funny - we generally watch a certain grade of film for watch parties because we're all chatting, but the chat was pretty quiet as everyone was engrossed with the film.  In general I knew it would be a challenge as (a) it was a movie someone genuinely loved (b) it's a comedy, which is hard to comment on and (c) it's actually good, so what does one say?  

A Fish Called Wanda (1988) is hysterical.  And as followers of this blog and podcast will note, we love JLC here.  But, also, a while back, we recorded a whole podcast on the film.

The Signal Watch PodCast · 113: "A Fish Called Wanda" (1988) - Jamie, SimonUK and Me

Friday Watch Party (Jamie Edition): A Fish Called Wanda

My favorite Jamie's favorite movie stars one of my other favorite Jamies.  And that's how we'll be watching A Fish Called Wanda for Jamie's birthday.  No, not that Jamie, this Jamie.

Anyway, I like this movie quite a bit, so it's not a tough sell.  I no longer yell "asshoooooole" at people on the road, but there was a time.

It is like an hour and 45, so we'll need to get going pretty quick.  

So, here's to Jamies with oval faces and good cheekbones, Oscar winners and birthday girls alike.

as a JLC fan, this brought me great joy

Day:  03/24/2023

Time:  6:30 Pacific, 8:30 Central

Cost:  I think it's free on Prime

Join us for the heist of the century!

CLICK HERE TO STEAMROLL INTO FRIDAY

(link live 10 minutes before showtime)

Yeoh Watch: Heroic Trio (1993)

Watched:  03/20/2023

Format:  Criterion

Viewing:  Unknown

Director:  Johnnie To

As far as I know, I hadn't watched Heroic Trio (1993) all the way through since some point in college.  I know I saw it in the theater with JAL during a student sponsored film series where we'd all go to the old Hogg theater in the middle of campus and ignore the bats flying around overhead and throwing little batty shadows onto the screen.  I recall watching part of it with The Admiral and Steanso on broadcast TV in about 1996.  And I'm pretty sure I saw it again on VHS at some point.  Jamie tells me we watched at least part or most of it in Phoenix, which I don't remember - but apparently happened.  

The film has been very hard to find in the US for years now.  Or I would have bought it on disc - DVD or Bluray.*  But now it's on Criterion Channel as part of the "Michelle Yeoh Kicks Ass" collection that spotlights her pre-US produced films as well as Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon, which took her Bond-based running start and made her a full-fledged star in the West.

Heroic Trio is more or less a fantasy comic-book movie with some post-Burton vibes in set design, but nuttier and occasionally much grimmer than Marvel or even DC fare, featuring a story that would need tweaking to be remade in the states.  It's mostly vibes, and those vibes will change at the drop of a hat throughout the film as it can't decide if this is tragedy, comedy, horror film or what.  And a movie can contain all those things, but sometimes those movies also need to find a ramping up and down into the change of tone.  This movie is slapping down moods like playing cards.

Doc Watch: Money Shot: The Pornhub Story (2023)

Watched:  03/19/2023

Format:  Netflix

Viewing:  First

Director:  Suzanne Hillinger

This was.... fine.  

Like it or not, Pornhub was the 12th most visited site in January 2023 (as of this writing), and when people had some time off, maybe the 3rd most visited site in December 2022.  In an era where we've shattered the monoculture, it's possible Pornhub is the great denominator.

A few years ago, I listened to a podcast that discussed the history of Pornhub, how it impacted pornography distribution, how that impacted performers, etc...  I won't get into it here, but that podcast was 2017, and this doc more or less blows past *all* of that in about twenty seconds to cover more recent history.  Given the title and stated agenda of the doc, it's a wild choice.  This doc is in no way a complete history of Pornhub, it's a dissection of a specific moment for Pornhub that is already fairly well known, was covered in the press, and which receives minimal new insight into the events probed, the inner workings of Pornhub, or much else.

Brooks Watch: History of the World - Part 1(1981)

Watched:  03/15/2023

Format:  Hulu

Viewing:  Unknown

Director:  Mel Brooks

Hulu now has a series running called History of the World - Part II, which has participation from the 96-year-old Mel Brooks.  Jamie mentioned she'd never seen the movie, and I said "well, we can't have that" - even though I hadn't seen it since college - and so I put it on.

Right out of the gate, it's amazing how much this movie would not be made today.  I know that's something you see in every post or article about a movie made during a certain window, but the self-censorship (not enforced by a code or Breen office) that's crept in during the past 10-15 years is somewhat shocking to some of us who lived in the long, long ago.  That's not to say every joke can or does still land the way it would have 42 years ago, there's some that were not great in 1981, and there's some that just haven't stood the test of time.*  

That said, as a satirist, Brooks' "ain't I a stinker?" delivery still cuts remarkably well.  Whether you're taking the piss out of the self-seriousness of historical epics, actual history and historical figures, the folly of humanity through the ages from stone-age to French Revolution...  Brooks' eye for the absurd still works.  

My favorite bit remains the Spanish Inquisition, which - for a period of absolutely horror - has really managed to capture the imagination and create not one but TWO bits of classic comedy between the stunning musical sequence here and, of course, Monty Python.

I mean, there's so much to unpack here in commentary and the general "fuck you" baked into every moment is incredible, robbing the Catholic Church of its power and reminding people that Jews survived this bullshit, too.  Maybe I grew up on too much Bugs Bunny, but this kind of thing is a 1000x more effective in communicating truth to power than yet another shame-troll reminding you "actually" something is bad.

It's also a delight to see Gregory Hines having a grand time in this movie, Dom Deluise, the beloved Madeline Kahn at the top of her game, Sid Caesar, Cloris Leachman, Ron Carey, Harvey Korman, Pamela Stephenson (of Superman III fame), the voice of Orson Welles and @#$%ing Shecky Greene.

No one is going to accuse Brooks of not playing for cheap laughs, but it's the cumulative affect of what he chooses to cover and how that 

It doesn't work as well as some of his other films.  But it works on that High Anxiety level, which is "enjoyable, insightful, but not as sublime as Young Frankenstein".  

Anyway, the new series is on Hulu.  I watched the pilot.  It was hysterical.

*it's also depressingly necessary to note that showing a character (especially one who isn't our hero) engaging in bad behavior is not the same as endorsing that behavior. But that doesn't mean that the jokes don't feel a bit tired or still work

Chiroptera Watch: Bats (1999)

Watched:  03/17/2023

Format:  Amazon

Viewing:  First

Director:  Louis Morneau

So, I like a good movie about people being attacked by animals.  This is that.  It will not surprise you that Bats (1999) is about bats.  Attacking people.  And the people who are quite cross that they are being attacked by bats.  

Mutant bats, but bats.

So, anyway, it's about pretty much nothing else.  There's no real sub-text.  It's just a movie about trying to stop bats from eating you and the medley of challenges that arise in the pursuit of stopping bats.  No intentional analogies, but it IS about bats with a weaponized virus that is accidentally released, and threatens to doom humanity if not contained and.... ehhhhh.....  that reads pretty weird here in 2023.  

It borrows heavily from Alien and Aliens from sound FX to character choices.  The bats are shown in close-up, they are terrific puppets, and I have no notes.  Love the bats.  Well done.  The movie never lets itself think it needs sub-plots, so expect no romance.  But I do think they must have decided to do some green-screened insert shots in a few dialog bits, because it really seems like the lighting is weird and the characters are shot in a weird single mid-shot dead center of the frame dropping jokes or whatever.  Maybe the first go-round was too grim for what it was?

This isn't a criticism, but Lou Diamond Phillips was featured less prominently than I'd figured or hoped for - he's in it, but he's featured supporting. Our star is Dina Meyer, who was having a moment in Hollywood, but they chose to straighten her magnificent curls, and I am against that decision.  

she's lovely here, but just sort of bleeds into the wall-paper of 1990's young female white-girl actors

just look at those spectacular locks

Anyway - I actually liked the movie!  It did what I hoped it would do.  It didn't weigh itself down with misguided moralizing, and it set up an internal logic and stuck to it.  Animals got the upper hand for a while and the puppets were neat.

There's probably more to say about Dina Meyer as a star, but we'll save that for another day.  And certainly LDP, who is always good.  And there's a dissertation worth of discussion about the mononymous Leon playing "Jimmy" and the role of African-American males in horror and horror-adjacent films, especially in the late 90's as audiences expected tropes to be addressed.

 

Friday Watch Party: BATS

So.  I've never seen this.  But it's 90 minutes, stars Lou Diamond Phillips whom we all love, has Dina Meyer which you will not hear me crying about, and is about (a) mutant bats (b) in a small Texas town.  

Texas does, in fact, have a ton of bats.  So will this movie make me fear them?

"hi!  how ya doin'?"

those are not birds

Anyway, let's check in with Lou, see what's what, and how one deals with mutant bats and why they're a problem.

Day:  O3/17/2023

Time:  8:30 Central/ 6:30 Pacific

Cost:  $0, I believe

JOIN US AT THIS BAT TIME AT THIS BAT CHANNEL

(link live ten minutes before show)