Kenpachrio Satsuma Merges With the Infinite

We are sad to note that actor Kenpachiro Satsuma has passed. 

Satsuma is probably best known in the US as the actor to wear the Godzilla suit in multiple movies during the Heisei Era, starting with 1984's Return of Godzilla and wrapping up with Godzilla vs. Destoroyah - so, spanning the entire era.  

It's hard to express how challenging the Godzilla suit work is, from the physical challenges of carrying an intensely heavy costume (sometimes in the water) to the mental fortitude needed to work in the suit for hours per day.  And, to actually act - and arguably all of the actors in the suit have brought personality to Big G.  And I'm a fan of the work Satsuma did in these movies.

 

Report on Hallmark Movies 2023

don't worry, they play brother and sister

So, here we are in 2023.  

In addition to Direct to Streaming Christmas movies, I've been throwing on the Hallmark Channel since way back in November.  

Apparently what both Jamie and I need this year is to just zone out for 90 minutes from time to time, and to be able to talk over a movie featuring characters we don't really care about a whole lot.  And that's absolutely the intention of a Hallmark Christmas movie - a minimum of drama and plot, reasonably good looking people predictably falling for each other, and a happy ending that guarantees these people will now be as boring as you are, because the events of this movie was the biggest thing to ever happen to them.

I copped to watching the film in 2015 and wrote my treatise on Hallmark movies back in 2017, and I think it shocked a lot of you to find out how very, very much I know about these movies that so many so casually get sniffy about (with good reason, tbh).  But a lot has occurred since 2017.  We're in the dark future of 2023 now, and the world is not what it was.  

A very, very big part of me would love to know how Hallmark works and how these movies come into being.  I have some theories based loosely on what I knew from a friend's mom who wrote Harlequin Romance novels, but there's zero confirmation on any of this.  I'd just be guessing.  

Andre Braugher Merges With The Infinite

I am deeply saddened to say that actor Andre Braugher has passed.

Back in college, he was the talent who got me to check out and stay with Homicide: Life on the Street and years later starred for several seasons of Brooklyn 99 as the precinct captain, making the most of his comedic talents.

Braugher was an amazing talent, and added a great deal to everything he was in.  I'm very sorry to hear of his passing.

Please enjoy some of the best of his role as Captain Holt

Holiday Watch: Santa Claus - The Movie (1985)

Watched:  12/8/2023

Format:  Amazon

Viewing:  First

Director: Jeannot Szward  

Even as a kid, when I saw the trailer for this movie and it looked a little suspicious to me. I don't know what it says that a kid pretty game for whatever looked at this and was like "nah", but I think that gut instinct was dead on.   I would have been 10 when this hit, so I wasn't really the audience, anyway - just old enough to not want to see "a kiddie movie", but it looked like schlock to me at that age, and I just had no interest.  

Apparently neither did Planet Earth, because the movie made about $23 million against an estimated budget between $30 and 50 million.

Flash forward to 2023, and we put this one on and a whole bunch of things became clear immediately.

Santa Claus: The Movie (1985) was produced by the Salkinds, the same shady guys who put together the first three Superman films and Supergirl.  They have their name up there first and foremost, so you know this is an Alexander Salkind joint.  And if you know anything about the Salkinds you know that if you're ethically a little shaky, these are your guys.  

G Watch Take 2: Godzilla Minus One (2023)

Watched:  12/7/2023

Format:  Alamo

Viewing:  Second

This is the first time in years I've seen a movie twice in the theater.  I intended to see Marvels again, but, hasn't happened.  

My reasons for returning to the cinema were two:

1. I could tell that when I effused about the movie, Jamie was like "yeah, you'll watch anything with Godzilla in it.  Stop telling me it's a good movie." so I wanted to just get her in a seat.  Thus, I lured her there with Alamo's chicken nuggets.*
2. I wanted to see everything again so I wasn't just dealing with the audio and visual input being shoved in my eyes on a first viewing and see how the movie sat with me when I knew what was coming.

I am happy to report that, much as I'd been told by Stuart who had already seen it twice, the movie may work even better on a second viewing.  

That's not to dismiss the impact of the first viewing, but I can say my first watch was pretty visceral in nature.  There's a lot going on.  World War II, after-World War II, subtitles, grief, a 15-story atomic monster...  So I was curious how it would hold up, and how it would feel different knowing how the movie works and ends.

SPOILERS

And so... the PodCast goes on Indefinite Hiatus

I'm not going to make a big deal out of this, but there's 2 or three of you who will want to know what is going on with the podcast, so I will answer in a single place I can link back to.

The Signal Watch PodCast is on indefinite hiatus.  It's probably done.  

I want to thank all the contributors from the past few years as we churned out hundreds of hours of conversation and talked about innumerable movies and other topics.  For me, it was a very good experience getting to watch and discuss films I likely wouldn't have gotten to or wouldn't have even known about.  It's made me a fan of new areas of film, and given me ample food for thought.  It's been a genuine growing experience.

It's also been a great way to keep up with people who I don't see that often, and during the pandemic, was a great way to stay social.  For every hour y'all heard recorded, there's at least that many that were just us shooting the breeze before and after the sessions.  I also met people I might otherwise have never met!  The internet is weird and sometimes good!

A few factors entered into my decision to put the podcast on hiatus.

Norman Lear Merges With The Infinite

Norman Lear, a man who changed television, has passed at 101.

There's whole areas of media study dedicated to Lear, so I won't get into it too much here.  But for those of us growing up as kids in the 1970s and 80's, there was kind of pre-Lear television and post-Lear television.  Those halcyon days of media you think of where father knew best and folks' disagreements were settled over a polite laugh or gunfire and women wore pearls and kissed husbands as they walked in the door with a smile?  Not Norman Lear.

Lear found the comedy in the reality of world and knew you could do more making people laugh than you could with a lecture, reflecting real world issues back to the audience, in the format of the sitcom.  As a kid, I remember knowing things could take a dramatic turn on One Day at a Time (something the reboot series echoed), but it wasn't off-putting even as a kid.  It was part of how television worked, as far as I was concerned.

While he moved on from TV, Lear has remained influential.  I hope in years to come, folks understand what he did to move TV on from its juvenile state and propel conversations onto the screen and into living rooms, and giving voice to characters that had been supporting characters at best.

Here's to 101 well-lived years. 

Holiday Classic Watch: Holiday Inn (1942)

Watched:  12/04/2023

Format:  Prime

Viewing:  Unknown

Director:  Mark Sadnrich

My understanding is that this movie, released in August of 1942, landed hard with Americans as we were facing the reality of what was going to be a long and deadly war on two fronts.  More specifically, this movie features the screen debut of "White Christmas" (he's sung it on the radio post-Pearl Harbor in 1941), which Bing Crosby would turn into the best selling single of all time with 50 million copies ringing up the tils as it became a sort of anthem for wishing for a return to normalcy.  

Holiday Inn (1942) is a story about a musical trio breaking up as the singer (Crosby) and the girl are breaking off to start a new life running a farm in Connecticut when the girl runs off with the dancer (Fred Astaire) to pursue dreams of stage glory.  Crosby eventually turns the farm into an inn where he can put on shows, just on holidays, trading the dream of stardom in exchange for just having a bit of fun every once in a while.  

Along comes a new girl, and a series of shows for every holiday starting with New Year (after introducing "White Christmas" during the meet-cute).  Meanwhile, Astaire is dumped and returns to the Inn, and begins pursuing the new girl whom Crosby has fallen hard for.

Anyway, the story is just a framework for Bing Crosby to dooby-doo his way through songs and Astaire to knock your socks off.  Unfortunately, I don't think it leaves you feeling particularly great about a single person on screen except for Crosby's chef, played by Louise Beavers.  

There is mention of the war during the WWII sequence as the movie pauses to reflect on what we're fighting for in song, and shows film of our militarization and FDR at the mic.  While the film exists as light entertainment, its hard to imagine what July 4, 1942 was actually like as the country leaned into what was clearly going to be a multi-year effort in which we'd lose countless servicemen and women.  But what is apparently true is that Pearl Harbor occurred during filming and they decided to really step up the July 4th sequence.

It is likely you've heard several songs from this movie over the years.  "Easter Parade" gets trotted out.  And it's worth mentioning Crosby would team with Danny Kaye for the 1954 classic White Christmas while Astaire would beat him to the punch with 1948's Easter Parade.

I was surprised to see the version on Amazon Prime retains the blackface number (Lincoln's Birthday).  Though I remember seeing it on my TV Christmas of 1994 when I first watched the movie, basic cable cut the number decades ago.  And, yes, it is that bad.  It's also a plot point, so the movie can be marginally confusing without the number, but to keep it in...   Look, I am not going to tell you what should or should not offend you or what criteria should be used to play or not play a film.  I am fine with cable cutting the sequence to keep the film out there, and from an historical perspective, the movie is a reflection of the time in which it was made.  As film fan and historian, yes, keep it in.  As a person who knows this is f'd up, and always was - you can skip the movie altogether if you like.  There are clips of not-offensive scenes on YouTube.  Or, jump over the scene whilst watching.  You do what works for you.

We chose to ffwd through the sequence once we realized it was there.  I've seen it, don't need to see it again.  

There's a whole discussion to be had about how it seems the younger generation wants to deal with older media, and that's to stuff it down the memory hole.  And I'll argue some film historians are currently trying to make it seem that very-mainstream-Hollywood was out of step with the general attitudes of the public at the time of a film's release, something I think there's more than ample evidence to suggest is not true.  We can discuss at some point, but that's a lot to hash out.*

What it does mean is that Holiday Inn is a fascinating bit of history in a single Christmas movie.  The film spun off multiple hit singles we still know, it sold people on the idea of secular Christmas songs, it does some crazy stuff where part of the illusion in the film's final minutes is *showing* the pulleys and levers of the illusion right out in the open to create a secondary illusion (and showing how films were made in 1942).  It shows some really depressing racism, sexism, etc... and it's a time capsule containing war propaganda. 

Plus, two of the biggest stars of the era.  Happy Holidays, film lovers.

*this is 78 years after *slavery*, and 6 after Gone With the Wind.  It's not just your elderly relatives that were just wildly racist.

Straight to Streaming Christmas: Candy Cane Lane (2023), Genie (2023) and Noelle (2019)

Watched:  CCL 12/01/2023, G 11/27/2023, N 12/02/2023

Format:  Amazon Prime/ The 'Cock/ Disney+

Viewing:  First for all

Director:  Reginald Hudlin / Sam Boyd / Marc Lawrence

We have a lot going on, and so we've been seeking out comfort-food-movies.  As this is the Holiday Season, that means Christmas-related movies.  

Yes, we've watched a shit-ton of Hallmark movies, enough so that I've forgotten all that we've watched and I'm not sure I'll post on it.  Instead, I'm taking a look at three of the "well, it's free on the service" movies we watched this week.  

I don't understand what the story is/ was on Noelle (2019).  It was listed as a 2019 release, and maybe it was.  I mostly remember it as one of the first "originals" I saw listed on Disney+, but not something I'd gotten around to watching (this makes me want to rewatch Togo, which I remember really liking).  But no one ever mentioned the movie to me, and so it just kind of fell into the background.  But maybe it had a theatrical run? 

But, this being 2023, we finally got to it.  

G Watch: Godzilla - Minus One (2023)

Watched:  11/29/2023

Format:  AMC IMAX

Viewing:  First

Director:  Takashi Yamazaki

Where to start?

Over the years, Godzilla has been many things.  Like Batman, he's been a children's character while also being a thing adults could appreciate.  But he's also been cast as a walking analogy in two very, very good films (Gojira and Shin Godzilla), a villain in others (Godzilla Returns and Raids Again), a dad (Son of Godzilla) a hero (most of the Shōwa era), a goof, a buddy, a ruffian...  

The American-produced Godzilla movies have done well financially, but, to me, struggled with an actual story until Kong vs. Godzilla.  But it would be misleading to say the Toho Studios produced films didn't struggle with same.  The Toho movies responded to the challenge by getting progressively crazier as the need to fill screen time with something other than expensive monster fights (models and custom 7' rubber suits are not cheap) became a clear necessity. 

To fill that run time*, both US and Toho films needed a story for humans - humans that Godzilla likely will not even be aware of during the course of the film  - that is compelling and meaningful.  But, man , have the results been mixed.  You get aliens, faeries, conspiracies, what-have-you.  And some of that is great!  Final Wars is like a party of a movie.  Watch it sometime.