Friday Watch Party Watch: American Cyborg - Steel Warrior

During summers and over Christmas while in college, I used to go see every single movie that came to the local AMC.  I'm pretty sure the ticket girl thought I was stalking her because there I was, like 4 nights per week.  And, as is my wont, I began addressing her by name.  

But it wasn't just me lurking around the AMC at Richey Road.  Back in those days, The Bros. Steans were very much a package deal (ask Jamie about a pre-Amy Jason), and so there we'd be, standing at the window, asking for two tickets to Man's Best Friend or whatever.  And, one Christmas, we got down to the dregs of the holiday-time offerings.  

With no Oscar bait on the table (this is just before they learned to dump all those movies in December, which would happen maybe the next Christmas), we chose American Cyborg: Steel Warrior.  

The movie was absolutely terrible.  To add to the experience, either the projector or film itself kept breaking.  So every twenty minutes or so, the movie would stop, the lights would come up and a half-full very small auditorium of people would have to look at each other, acknowledging "yes, I also chose to watch something called American Cyborg: Steel Warrior".  And, every time it broke, it was adding a few minutes onto the duration of how long any of us planned to be there, and we'd all shown up for a 10:00 PM show.

As it crept to about 11:15 and the movie broke yet again, I heard some real grumbling this time.  And so, I stood, faced the crowd and said to people I had never seen before:

Oh, no.  I know you're all thinking this movie is terrible, and, it is.  But no one leaves.  We started this together, and we're finishing this together.  We can do this!  Let's finish this awful movie!  

People, I got applause.

Not a soul left that theater.

In retrospect, that may have been a terrible mistake.

And, Friday night, I share that mistake with you.

Starring people you don't know, one of the final films put out by Cannon while in its death throes, we're watching people run around an abandoned factory.

Day:  04/22/2022

Time:  8:30 PM

Service:  Amazon Streaming

Price:  $2

CLICK HERE TO GET CYBERNETIC/ STEELY

PodCast 195: "The Wild Geese" (1978) - A SimonUK Cinema Episode w/ Ryan

Watched:  04/08/2022

Format:  Amazon Prime

Viewing: Second

Decade:  1970's

Director:  Andrew V. McLaglen

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Aging soldiers of fortune go back in for one last mission - and this time we're talking about the movie and not SimonUK and Ryan! It's a SimonUK Cinema Classic, a canon film, and a chance to watch Richard Burton play essentially himself if he was a mercenary. Behold post-colonialism relationships with the African continent, high adventure and the folly of canceling your Christmas travel plans.

SoundCloud 

The Signal Watch PodCast · 195: "The Wild Geese" (1978) - A SimonUK Cinema Episode w/ Ryan

YouTube

Music:

Overture - Roy Budd, The Wild Geese OST 

Flight of the Wild Geese - Joan Armatrading, The Wild Geese OST

SimonUK Cinema Series

The Signal Watch PodCast · SimonUK Cinema Series

Holiday Watch: Easter Parade (1948)

Watched:  04/17/2022

Format:  TCM

Viewing:  Second?

Decade:  1940's

Director:  Charles Waters

I put this on at the start as we were cooking, and then realized I was watching the end.

This movie isn't my favorite.  But it does have Ann Miller in some parts of it.  And that's not all bad.

PodCast 194: "Turning Red" (2022) - Pixar Talk w/ Ryan Michero, Maxwell, Nathan C and me

Watched:  04/09/2022

Format:  Disney+

Viewing:  Second

Decade:  2020's

Director:  Domee Shi

For more ways to listen

With a new Pixar film, Ryan Michero returns to the podcast to fill us in on what he was up to on the film. We get a behind-the-scenes peek at the film, and talk a lot about what makes art, technology and story all work, Pixar-style! And, Ryan S gets mad about ginned up controversies.

SoundCloud 

The Signal Watch PodCast · 194: "Turning Red" (2022) - Pixar Talk w/ Ryan Michero, Maxwell, Nathan C and me

YouTube

Music:

Nobody Like U - by Billie Eilish and Finneas and performed by 4*Town

U Know What's Up - by Billie Eilish and Finneas and performed by 4*Town

Pixar Talk Playlist

The Signal Watch PodCast · Pixar Talk

Happy Birthday Kareem Abdul-Jabbar

As a kid, I was an NBA nut.  And because it was the 1980's, I watched the Lakers.  Chances were always good they were in the playoffs or the Finals.  But I watched them, the Pistons, the Bulls and the Rockets when I could (I would become a real Rockets fan when I moved back to Houston in 1990) all season long.  

I liked most of the guys you think of from that era, but my favorite Laker was always Kareem Abdul-Jabbar.   I made the crucial mistake of trying to imitate his play as a 6'3" kid, but I did play center and I wore glasses, and it all made sense in my head.  But my skyhook was not Kareem's skyhook.  And my defense was not his.

Of course, Kareem is one of the intellectuals of the NBA.  And that had an impact on me as a kid.  I understood that, like Muhammad Ali, he had abandoned his birthname of Lou Alcinder.  I understood why.  Those are both big things when you're a kid, but also helps frame it in a way that's understandable and something you're keen to appreciate when you know that's part of the story of someone you look up.  

I knew Kareem was a reader and a smart guy, and I have delighted in his post NBA career as a sort of wise elder.  I mean, no one is going to Bill Laimbeer or Dennis Rodman to get their take on current events.  They aren't writing excellent think pieces that show up in the news.  

If I met Kareem today, though, I'd probably just ask him about making The Fish that Saved Pittsburgh, and if he'd rewatched it lately.  

Anyway, I had a lot of sports heroes as a kid, but Kareem was always the top of the list.  

Its been wild watching the current series Winning Time about the people and forces that combined to become the Lakers you know and love, and to see Kareem dramatized by Solomon Hughes in a way that feels like maybe it could be right (but you'd have to ask the man himself).  

Anyway, happy 75th to one of the best in the game.  

Watch Party Watch: Catwoman (2004)

Watched:  04/15/2022

Format:  Amazon Watch Party

Viewing:  first complete, end-to-end viewing

Decade:  2000's

Director:  some asshole who goes by "Pitof"

If I were teaching a class on superhero film, I would make Catwoman (2004) the half-way point of the class.  Chronologically, the movie arrives after Fox successfully put out two X-Men movies and Sony has delivered some Spider-Mans.  Warner Bros has shut down its Bat-franchise and will sometimes think about making a superhero movie, but everything you read in the press that WB is considering is still stuck in the idea that superheroes are campy and should be comedic, or is a reimagining where they'll use the name but everything else will be so changed, it will bear no resemblance to the comics.  

Friday Watch Party - Catwoman!

Good Friday?  Let's make it a GREAT Friday, with the power of Halle Berry!

This is also a story about death and resurrection, but this one involves considerably more cats and milk.  And if there's one thing I know, it's that y'all love cats.  

Well, so does the hero of our film!

So, I have seen this movie in pieces over the years, but never straight through.  It's time to fix that.  

Jamie is already mad I picked it.  Just FYI.

In 2004, with Marvel getting a successful X-franchise out there and some Spidey films, DC absolutely panicked and green lit Catwoman, based on no comic property, and loosely tied to about a 60 second bit in 1992's Batman Returns.  This movie - directed by a mononymic French guy who knew nothing about Catwoman and had no real directing experience - is really the lens you need to understand how much WB did not give a shit about it's subsidiary, DC Comics, and how little they believed their characters were worth.  

In all fairness, we do get 100 or so minutes of Halle Berry.  And, of course, Sharon Stone!

Day:  Friday, 04/15

Time:  8:30 Central/ 6:30 Pacific

Service:  Amazon Watch Party:

Cost:  $4

CLICK HERE TO GET FRISKY 

90's Watch: The Freshman (1990)

Watched:  04/12/2022

Format:  HBOmax

Viewing:  Unknown

Decade:  1990's

Director:  Andrew Bergman

I'm kind of fascinated by the writer/ directors who did a few things but aren't workhorses with thirty directing credits or a hundred writing credits.  Because Andrew Bergman is one of these guys.  He doesn't have any movies in his IMDB that's a big mark against him, but it's just not clear why their last big credit was in, like, 1997.  

The Freshman (1990) arrived at a very peculiar time in my life.  That summer I had been in DC for my uncle's wedding, and we had some downtime as it wasn't a touristy sort of week in town.  And, frankly, although my brother and I were 15 and 17, we got shunted to the side as not-adults.  My uncle, being my uncle, had some videotapes he owned, and that included Godfather, Godfather II and Das Boot (just to prove Bob knows how to party).  And, Jason and I watched all three.

Anyway, 1989-1990 was more or less the year that I became a nascent film-jerk, because that Spring we'd also rented Lawrence of Arabia and a host of others for the first time.  But The Godfather movies hit me like a ton of bricks.  And then I got home, and a few weeks later, The Freshman hit theaters.  

To this day, this is one of my favorite comedies.  Everyone in it is perfectly cast and nails their business.  Brando is fucking magical.  Broderick is the best he'll be til Election.  And it rewards rewatches to really pick up on some of the dialog and what people are doing and saying.  Man, we lost Bruno Kirby decades too early.  And, man, Penelope Ann Miller is so, so good.

But, yeah, I absolutely love this goofy movie.  It's incredibly warm-hearted for a movie made in a period where that often translated to schmaltz or dumb-assery (this same producer made Chances Are).  And I still think it's psychotic that this movie didn't do better, but maybe the Godfather crowd didn't want to see Brando send up one of his most famous characters, and maybe the younger crowd wasn't interested.  

And how DOES a komodo dragon fit into a mob comedy, anyway?  Or Bert Parks?  

Anyway, I think history has mostly been kind to the film.  Hasn't it?  I don't know.  But it was a great little push to let me know "movies can be fun" - not just the movie I was watching, but how it played with the most sacred of cows.  It's still shocking to me that all the pieces came together as they did.

Gilbert Gottfried Merges With the Infinite

Comedian and actor Gilbert Gottfried has passed.   And I'm going to miss him.

Gottfried was someone it seems literally everyone knew, and he was a YMMV kind of personality, drifting between doing stuff for kids to telling deeply dark jokes at Friar's Club Roasts.  And, yeah, he was the voice of both the AFLAC Duck (until he went dark and got fired), and Iago from Aladdin, but he was also the voice of Mr. Mxyzptlk on Superman: The Animated Series, and is now what I hear in my head when I see the character in new or old comics.

But, really, I think of Gottfried as part of the two-headed hosting beast of USA's Up All Night schlock movie program.  One night would be the lovely and hilarious Rhonda Shear, and the next you'd get Gottfried hosting you through A Polish Vampire in Burbank, Cannibal Women of the Avocado Jungle, etc...   He would wander the streets, amusement parks, bars, whatever... and be there with you in the wee hours as you made it to the end of H.O.T.S. or whatever.  He was truly a pal (and I also kind of wanted his job).

I do love how he knew what he was, embraced it, and was always the funniest @#$%ing dude in whatever he was in.  Truly, never afraid to go there.

PODCAST 193: "Chances Are" (1989) - a Birthday Exchange Movie Discussion w/ Jamie and Ryan

Watched:  04/10/2022

Format:  Amazon

Viewing: First

Decade:  1980's

Director:  Emilie Ardolino

For more ways to listen

NSFW! In retaliation for his selection, Jamie busts out a mostly-forgotten late-80's magical-realism romantic comedy that really draws some interesting lines in the sand for what it thinks are totally fine ideas to put into a movie. Thrill to Jamie and Ryan pondering how this was a mainstream movie that went without comment at the time.

SoundCloud 

The Signal Watch PodCast · 193: "Chances Are" (1989) - a Birthday Exchange Movie Discussion w/ Jamie and Ryan

YouTube

Music:

After All - Cher and Peter Cetera

Chances Are - Johnny Mathis

Jamie's Cinema Classics

The Signal Watch PodCast · Jamie's Cinema Classics